Mountain Times - Volume 48, Number 23: June 5-11

The Mountain Times • June 5-11, 2019 NEWS BRIEFS • 11
rr RUTLAND REGION
The
grassy,
city-owned
neighborhood
green
space at 113
Library Ave. was bustling
June 1 as NeighborWorks
of Western Vermont
kicked off its weeklong
Community Impact
Survey of neighborhood
conditions, likes and
dislikes. By 11:45 a.m.,
the NWWV table had
gathered 30 questionnaires
and was hoping to
have 209 in hand by the
Google holds an annual contest
for Google doodles that may adorn
its landing page, and an 8-year-old
second-grader has been chosen as
the national finalist for the state of
Vermont.
Alyssa Chisamore of Rutland
By Julia Purdy
NeighborWorks launches door-to-door survey
end of the week. Families,
dogs, kids on bikes,
disabled folks could visit
tables for Rutland County
Head Start, BROC, NewStory
and the Council on
Aging, grab a bag of fresh
popcorn, take home a
potted marigold donated
by Radical Roots Farm,
and fill out a questionnaire
on the spot.
Volunteers will be
going house to house in
pairs, in an area bounded
on the north by Crescent
Street, on the west by
Cleveland Avenue, on
Rutland girl places in Google Doodle contest
won with a dramatic rendering of
a flying dragon (or maybe two),
made out of the letters G-O-O-
G-L-E. Judges included a teacher
from Spokane, Washington; Jimmy
Fallon of NBC’s “Tonight Show”;
and Muppet Kermit the Frog.
the south by State Street,
and on the east by Grove
Street. Questionnaires
can also be filled out
online via a link on the
NWWV website, nwwvt.
org.
This week happens to
be National Neighborhood
Week, said Communications
and Outreach
Coordinator Svea Howard.
It’s all part of restoring
neighborhood pride
(and property values) on
streets that have had a
checkered reputation.
This is the third community
survey in the
Northwest neighborhood.
The first survey
in 2013 happened in
conjunction with the new
Project VISION. Housing
conditions are assessed
and either torn down
and replaced by community
open space, or
rehabilitated for owneroccupancy.
Last year a
federally-impounded
drug house on Park Street
was renovated and sold
to a family. To volunteer,
conta ct showard@nwwvt.org.
If Alyssa wins the national
competition, she will also win a
$30,000 college scholarship and a
technology package worth $50,000
for her school, the Northeast
Primary School on Temple Street
in Rutland.
Community approves plan
for Moon Brook ponds
A series of five community meetings concerning the
future of neighborhood ponds on Moon Brook have culminated
in plans that meet residents’ approval but are still
contingent on raising approximately $1.3 million – without
charging taxpayers, if possible, said Commissioner of Public
Works Jeff Wennberg at the final community meeting
May 29.
The current push to rehabilitate Moon Brook dates back
to 1986, when the state first determined that Moon Brook
downstream of the Combination Pond dam failed to meet
water quality standards under Vermont’s Clean Water Act
of 2015 (Act 64). Solar heating of the water at the two ponds
was identified as a key cause of the problem; the other was
silt buildup from storm runoff. At issue was whether to
demolish the dam, which would drain Combination Pond,
a favorite neighborhood recreation area, causing a furor.
The city sued for more time to arrive at mutually acceptable
solutions and invited the input of neighbors and others.
Wennberg outlined the steps that will accomplish the
goal and also preserve the dam. These include lowering the
water levels in Combination and Piedmont ponds, planting
vegetation and shade trees on the shorelines, raising
the dam height and replacing the spillway.
So far, “substantial” funds are available for restoring
habitat, reducing phosphorus runoff and the vegetation
buffers, Wennberg said. He hopes to raise the rest with
fundraising events and other means.
CSJ: Innaccuratly handles money
continued from page 1
pay out vacation benefits or the wages still owed to the
three faculty members that had chosen to be paid out
over 12 months.
“The CFO is hopeful that enough student payments
will come in to pay those wages and benefits; however,
CSJ is not able to pay them out at this time,” she wrote.
Curtis said he feels powerless to do much – going to
court would cost about as much as he might ultimately
recover.
“I feel like they’re aware of that situation and assuming
that no one is going to do anything,” he said.
Kelly Burkett, a former learning specialist, believes the
college incorrectly calculated her last paycheck by over
$1,000. She’s filed a wage complaint with the Vermont
Department of Labor.
Burkett said she’s sympathetic the college may be running
low on cash. But she points out her salary was funded
from a Title III grant. “This is federal money,” she said.
Jim Eckhardt, the president of Censor Integrated
Facility Services, a security company based in Rutland,
said he pulled his business in late March after the school
had racked up an unpaid bill “in the neighborhood of
$20,000.”
Eckhardt said he went back-and-forth with college officials
for a few weeks before they stopped answering his
calls and emails. He finally went to the campus himself,
where employees gave him an email for Jeff Sands at Dorset
Insolvency Services.
Eckhardt wrote to the address, and received a letter
back on March 30, addressed to “Dear Claimant of the
College of St. Joseph,” telling him that the school “cannot
currently afford to pay your invoices and has frozen all
past-due, un-secured debts until assets can be liquidated
to generate the funds to pay these debts... Most of the
value is in the real estate which could take years to sell. It is
likely that all the unsecured creditors will be stuck waiting
for resolution during that time,” the letter continued.
“In the whole 34 years that I’ve been in business,” Eckhardt
said, “I’ve only been burned one time.”
The US Department of Agriculture’s Office of Rural Development
loaned the college $2.4 million in 2017 to fund
the acquisition of a 32-unit apartment complex on Campbell
Road to house students and staff. A spokesperson for
the agency said the USDA had come to an agreement with
the college on Wednesday
to write off the remaining $1
million balance.
“USDA determined the
College of St. Joseph did not
have the funds or access to
funds to make further payments
on their loan,” USDA
spokesperson Megan Roush
said in an email.
The apartment complex was purchased by the college
in 2017 for $2.3 million from Jetbar Inc., a company
owned by Rutland businessman Charles Coughlin,
according to the Rutland City assessor’s office. CSJ sold
the property this spring at a $731,000 loss, when Equinox
Mountain Partners LLC, a company with a Manchester
address, purchased the property for just shy of $1.6 mil-
NOW
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“THE SCHOOL CANNOT
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The USDA has also loaned money to another Vermont
college that announced it would close this year. Green
Mountain College in Poultney received $19.5 million, also
in 2017, to refinance its debts
and acquire some property.
The USDA has not written off
that loan, Roush said. College
officials have said they had set
aside the necessary dollars to
fund this year’s payment.
Scott, CSJ’s president, declined
a phone interview, but
in a statement said that “the college values its professional
relationships and is working to satisfy its financial obligations
to its creditors.”
The Rutland college is not the only one suffering from
a messy wind-down. Southern Vermont College, in Bennington,
which announced in March it would shutter at
the end of the year, is facing two separate lawsuits from
former donors.
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