School Board Meeting

The Burke school board have several pressing projects around the bend including changing the light fixtures at the school to new led lights, fixing the water system, and on top of these finding a new principal.

The board met on April 11th for over two hours to discuss many different projects. The water system loan was voted through on town meeting day but that doesn't mean the project itself is far from being completed. So far the preliminary design for the new water system has been drawn up but they have yet to begin the work on the project. They are still waiting on the states data of water usage so they can see how big of a tank will be needed in order to filter properly.

At town meeting day one of the biggest issues was the use of chlorine to filter the water so the board has been looking into alternatives including using ultra violet lights to sterilize the water but it is unclear if the school will meet the requirements for the use of u.v. lights and if they don't they will have no choice but to use the chlorine system. But a rather inexpensive fix to the problem of drinking chlorinated water would be to fix the drinking fountains with filters to make them designated clean water sources. The filters would only cost around $65 a piece.

Another project that was presented at the meeting was the Burke Town School lighting project. This project will put modern led lights in the interiors of all the buildings and will utilize motion detectors in order to save more money. In order to pay for the system the school is looking into they will lease the lights out for four years; after which they will own them.



Also at the meeting the board approved the resignation of Principal Janet E. Cerro. Cerro has been the principal at the Burke Town School for the past three and a half years. Cerro read part of her resignation and the board then thanked her for time at the school. She will be moving to a new school that is much closer to her home. The board has already begun the search for a new principal.

Burke Town Meeting

The town of Burke met on February 28, the night before Town Meeting day, to go over what was to be voted on the following day through Australian ballot as well vote on several public issues in both the Town Report and the School District.





The meeting began with the reading of the names of those who had died in the previous year and a singing of America the Beautiful in honor of them and those who are currently serving in the armed services. Then State Senator Joe Benning and Representatives Howard Crawford and Richard Lawrence all gave speeches on what they are doing for Burke.
After these speeches the meeting moved on to the Meeting. They began with the Town Meeting where after briefly introducing each article to the floor they discussed Article one through three before voting on the issues including accepting the town report, setting a date for when taxes would be paid into the treasury, and authorizing the select board to borrow money in anticipation of revenues. All of these articles were voted through with no real opposition and all the articles that were voted on the following day were also gone over but there were very few questions about them. In fact every article that was put forth was voted through the next day including the electing of Town Officers which all candidates ran unopposed.
Unlike the town meeting the school meeting was a bit more controversial. After introducing the seven articles they discussed each article and voted on articles four through six. But the article that recieved the most contreversy was article three which states, "Shall the voters of the Burke School District authorize the Board of School Directors to apply for a loan from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program and borrow an amount not to exceed $211,200 for water system improvements at the school?"

In order to better understand the project that this had to deal with the school board brought in the engineer in charge to explain it to the residents. The engineer explained how the state is requiring the Burke town school to put in a disinfection system in order to further filtrate the schools water. Due to the fact that the school already puts orthophosphate into the water to combat levels of iron and copper the system would have to be a chlorine system. He also explained that they might have to put in a tank to hold water to disinfect it. But if they show the state that the town school doesn't need a tank and just have a contact pipe, which is a slow flowing pipe which would disinfect as it goes and would cost less money.

Many of the people in the crowd didn't understand why if the school hadn't failed any water tests they had to put in this secondary system, but the main concern had to be that the system would be chlorine which they were worried about. One Resident, George Wagner Sr said "Chlorine is a carcinogen and I don't want my grand kids drinking that." While in a meeting afterwards School Board member Tony DeMasi said that the amount of chlorine would have to follow Vermont standards for safety. During the meeting it was suggested that they replace all the pipes in the building in order to deal with the problem, but there would still need to be a disinfection system installed. Although if there was no use of orthophosphate they could use a Ultra Violet system which would not put any chemicals into the water. Demasi stated that he is willing to look into replacing the pipes but doesn't think people realize how much work would really have to be done.

DeMasi also stated that if the loan didn't pass the following day the town would miss out on a forgivable loan which would essentially give them a $50,000 grant. After all was said and done the article was passed the next day with a vote of 161 to 66. All the other articles were also passed with no close races.
After town meeting day had ended and the votes had been tallied up there wasn't a single item that wasn't passed and there were no close races.

Zoning Administrator Resigns

Burke's part time Zoning Administrator Mark Daigle has decided to throw in the towel.
At Monday February sevenths selectboard meeting a letter that Daigle had sent to the selectboard containing his resignation was read. Daigle said that due to the fact that the selectboard was increasing the Zoning Administrating hours to 16 hours a week he couldn't afford to commit to that much time which would take away from his business.
The selectboard was adamant about thanking Daigle for the time that he had served as the Zoning Administrator. The board appointed member Sam Sanderson as temporary Zoning Administrator until a replacement can be found.
Also present at the meeting was the Development Review Board which were advocating that position of Zoning Administrator should be a full time position. But the selectboard believe increasing the hours is enough.
"we are funded for about a half time person and we are going to try that and see how that works. I'm curious if we even need that much. That's one reason why the boys and I decided that maybe I would do it for a little while. To maybe find out how much time we really need," said Sanderson.
The board expects that the temporary position will only be for a couple of months.

Burke Dog Sled Race

On Saturday January 29th and Sunday January 30th East Burke was the host to the fifth annual Sled Dog race. An event that many may have found fascinating. The race is a fundraising event hosted by the Wafer Family Foundation along with the Clark Gillies Foundation in order to raise money for children of the area. The races founder, George Wafer says that he witnessed a sled dog race some six years ago and thought that it would be a good way to raise money.

Dog Teams came from all over. Including all over New England, Canada, and even a team that was from North Carolina. There were close to 1000 dogs in East Burke all ready and born to run. NHL hall of famer Clark Gillies, one of the hosts of the event, said that the dogs just want to run that it takes four of five guys to hold them back when you hook them up to the at the starting line.
There were numerous events in the two days with races that could be up to 20 miles in length with over a dozen dogs pulling sleds. There was even an event that had younger spectators participating in the festivities.
With all the barking and howling it was evident that the experience was all about man's best friend.