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Will you be prepared in the event that a family member, friend, neighbor or stranger goes in to cardiac arrest in front of you? Or what if any of those same people people suffer from a significant cut, wound and blood loss; do you know what to do in case of either of these emergencies? Your quick action can definitely save a life! Learn how to identify a cardiac arrest, do ‘Hands Only CPR’ and how to use an AED. Learn how to prevent further blood loss, use a tourniquet or even make one in our free classes to be held Tuesday night, March 19 at the Plymouth Town Hall. The Hands Only CPR class will start at 7 pm and the Stop the Bleed class will begin at 8 pm that night. These classes are free and conducted as a community service by the Plymouth First Response Team.

To register for either class you can sign up at the town hall or email Sue Poirier at spcolby@gmail.com. Registration deadline is Friday, March 15th. Spaces are limited so please sign up early.

For further information call Sue at 802-236-2683.

The Plymouth Town meeting will be Monday March 4th, voting will occur the following day, March 5th.

Dear readers,

The Plymouth Town meeting will be held on March 5, not March 4 as previously mentioned. Sorry for the confusion.

Reprinted with permission from The Vermont Standard

2/26/24

The month is coming to a close although February has an extra day this year. The full moon has dominated the night sky making it particularly bright with the snow. Several people have told me it has disrupted their sleep!

There does not appear to be much snow in the forecast, but many of us are enjoying snowshoeing while it lasts. I did not see them on Patch Brook Rd on Sunday, but have been told there were two coyotes feasting on prey down by water there.

I have been remiss in noting birthdays. I see that I missed former resident Eric Johnsen (2/2), Scott Hepler (2/17) and Naomi Moyer (2/25). Hope they have all celebrated well! If you would like to be included, just let me know.

Lauren and I have tried to use the Plymouth Press to provide information that can be useful to our community. It seems that opinion pieces are better suited to Facebook, so we have not included them.  I have attempted to ask pertinent questions that might be on the minds of others, then include factual information.

In response, Elliot Rubin, one of our MVSU representatives has provided resource material. Tesha Buss, our representative, has included her articles. With so many financial requests coming at us, I decided to ask Brandon Bergey, Bethany Birches Camp director to provide tax implications for the upcoming vote to be relieved of the education portion of the Camp’s taxes. Below is his response:

The rate is $0.0081 or $8 per $100,000 of value. So, if your assessment is $500,000 your share of the BBC education tax is $40. If your assessment is $1,000,000 your share is $80. And so on. BBC is paying all of our municipal tax.

Our Town Meeting is at 7:00 PM on Monday, 3/4 and as noted on the Website and in the Town Report, some voting takes place that evening. Voting by Australian ballot for other items and elected officials will be from 10 AM until 7:00 PM on Tuesday, 3/6 at the Town Building. You can ask for either a Republican or Democratic ballot for the Presidential Primary there as well.

House Education is working on a school construction bill.

The first part of the bill will be to create incentives for district-wide planning grants to assess all buildings and programs, study enrollment, promote collaborations and explore and identify cost saving measures.

The second part will be to create a working group that will make recommendations to next year’s new legislature for the creation of a new state supported school construction aid program.

The task force this year was not as effective as it could be due to the July flooding. The new program will be quite different from what we had before and careful consideration is needed. The new working group will have to address the details of governance, prioritization criteria, bonding capacity, funding streams and more.

To obtain future state aid, a project will have to meet numerous criteria such as a district-wide plan, proper project planning, architecture and design work and the choosing of a vetted construction company to manage and complete the project.

The state is also aware that many projects cannot wait for the creation of the program. The current recommendation for how long the state will look back to cover qualified portions of projects that began prior to the launch of the program is five years.

Here is the link to the full Task Force Recommendations:
https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Education/School%20Construction/2024/W~Jill%20Briggs%20Campbell~The%20School%20Construction%20Aid%20Taskforce%20Report~2-1-2024.pdf

Here is the link to a shorter slide deck:
https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Education/School%20Construction/2024/W~Jill%20Briggs%20Campbell~School%20Construction%20Aid%20Taskforce%20Report~2-1-2024.pdf

The bill is still in committee and will come to the floor of the house prior to March 15. You can follow the work of the legislature here: https://legislature.vermont.gov/

You can view reports on education from the Joint Fiscal Office here: https://ljfo.vermont.gov/subjects/education

Tesha Buss
State Representative, Windsor – 5
Plymouth, Reading, Woodstock

To learn about the school budget and the tax implications for Plymouth –

1- read the Vermont Standard School Budget Tab ( attached)

2- attend the informational session being held at Woodstock Union Middle and High School library, in the Town of Woodstock, on Thursday, Feb 29, 2024 at 6:30pm. 

The information for that meeting is on page 8 of the Vermont Standard School Budget Tab, including a zoom link if folks can’t attend in person.

Thank you for your interest,

Sincerely,

Elliot Rubin, MD, FAAP

Plymouth Representative

Mountain Views School District Board of Directors

Reprinted with permission from The Vermont Standard

2/19/24

Looking out the window with the sunshine reflecting off the dusting of new snow and the marvelously blue sky, it is quite lovely. Now if the wind would only subside, it would be perfect for another snowshoe trek like yesterday! A few of us ventured over the Camp Plymouth State Park and it was delightful. 

I wish I could have captured the beautiful amber colored icicle hanging from my bedroom roof this morning when the sun was shining through it.  We really do live in wonderful place and it is fun to see the animal tracks meandering through the snow. There are many people in our area for this holiday week also enjoying time here.

Although not a huge crowd, it was nice to see folks at Town Hall Sunday evening for the Emergency Services spaghetti dinner. The Reading Group did not meet last week because 4 of us had other commitments. We will discuss the same book for our 3/20 gathering.

I have not had an opportunity yet to read the Town Report, but I know folks were anxious to get it in hand. There is much to consider with budgets going up. It will be important to look at the expenses from all angles and attend meetings if possible.

By Babette Stolk, from VT Digger

February 16, 2024, 6:02 am