The first of the magnet schools is the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes, the first magnet school in the country with an emphasis on sustainability. “It includes things like social justice, civic engagement, things as simple as local foods, as recycling in the school, composting, things like that,” explained Anne Tewksbury-Fry, a sustainability schools coach at Barnes Elementary in a WCAX interview.

The second school is the Integrated Arts Academy at the H.O Wheeler school.

The schools were conceived in part because schools like Champlain Elementary were filled to capacity with students and in part to counter the high poverty rate and low test scores at Wheeler and Barnes by encouraging parents and children from other parts of the city to enroll in these two schools. Not all parents are pleased that they may need to send their children to a school not in their immediate neighborhood. People buy real estate in particular neighborhoods of Burlington so as to send their children to a particular school.  Real estate in the south end of Burlington is more expensive in part because of the school district. Some real estate agencies, particularly Coldwell Banker Hickok Boardman, have made the wise decision not to advertise a parcel of Burlington real estate as within any one particular school district and instead advertising that the school is “district assigned.”

Burlington is not alone in its struggle to weigh the concerns of parents and student test scores against education costs, and property taxes. I expect that in the future Vermont will see many school districts merge into fewer, larger districts in order to cut costs. This has worked successfully in Maine.

The statue is covered up for its official unvieling, but here are a few sneak peeks– my first news scoop.

The following is from Joe Reinert, Assistant to the Burlington Mayor. The opinion below are from Mayor Kiss and do not represent my opinions:

The City will hold four public informational meetings related to the Champlain Parkway project.  Each meeting will provide an overview of the entire project, while also focusing on a specific topic:

-  Mobility Issues: Project Performance for Automobiles, Bicycles, and Pedestrians.  TUESDAY, MAY 25, 6:30 PM, Champlain Elementary School, 800 Pine Street.

-  Neighborhood and Community Issues. WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 6:30 PM, Contois Auditorium, City Hall.

-  Economic Development. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 6:30 PM, Water Treatment Plant Conference Room, 234 Penny Lane (at the south end of Lake Street).

-  Environmental Issues. THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 6:30 PM, Burlington Electric Department, 585 Pine Street.

The Champlain Parkway will construct and rehabilitate approximately 2.4 miles of roadway, pedestrian, and bicycle facilities commencing at the interchange of I-189 with US 7 in the City of South Burlington and extending westerly and northerly to the intersection of Pine Street with Main Street within the City of Burlington’s City Center District (CCD).  Between Home Avenue and Lakeside Avenue, new roadway will be constructed on already acquired right-of-way.  From Lakeside Avenue to Pine Street and terminating at Main Street the Parkway will use existing roadways, and construction will consist of rehabilitation and improvements to the existing streets. The roadway will consist of one lane in each direction with turn lanes and traffic signals at certain intersections. Pedestrian facilities include sidewalks, shared-use paths, cross-walks and actuated pedestrian phasing at signalized intersections. Bicycle facilities include the shared-use paths and on-road components.

Mayor Kiss encourages residents to come to the meetings to learn more. “The Champlain Parkway is a project that benefits Burlington in several ways.  It will provide relief to South End neighborhoods from truck traffic they currently experience and improves intersections throughout the entire route of the project, while enhancing bicycle and pedestrian access. It will create and enhance economic development opportunities in the Pine Street corridor.  It complements and supports potential access to and development within the south end of the Waterfront. I look forward to continuing to move forward on the project and making the Champlain Parkway a reality after more than 40 years of planning and analysis.  I hope residents come to these meetings to learn more about the project and ask any questions they may have.”

After holding the informational meetings the City will apply for an Act 250 permit for the project. At its May 17 meeting, the City Council passed a resolution endorsing the public informational process and authorized the City to move forward with the Act 250 permit (http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/docs/1988.pdf ). For more information about the project, go to http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us, call the Burlington Department of Public Works at 863-9094, or read more about at  Vermont Department of Transportation.

Some major changes have been proposed to Chapter 11 and Chapter 3 of the Essex Town Plan which have the potential to jeopardize the protection of Saxon Hill Forest and to increase industrial areas at the expense of natural and recreational space. The change in chapter 11 is in opposition to the original goals of the Town Plan to preserve Saxon Hill for recreation and preservation. The proposed changes in chapter 3 (The Economic Development portion of the plan) are based partly on a survey with only 100 responses that didn’t track IP addresses. It is baffling why the Planning Commission and the Selectboard are incorporating the newly released Economic Development Study into the Town Plan so prematurely before the Economic Development Committee has reviewed it or the Board as approved it as a valid study.

Also incorporated into the Plan is a well thought out and scientific study and action plan to preserve our scenic vistas and open space, which has been a goal of our citizens and our Town Plan for many years.

Please come and shape your Town’s future and please have a voice about the potential destruction of Saxon Hill recreational area.

If you would like to add your name to an e-mailed letter that is being sent to our town representatives please send your full name and address to vtjohns@comcast.net. We hope to send the letter before May 27th. The letter you will be adding your name to is as follows:

“Dear Friend of Saxon Hill Forest:
As you may know the preservation of Saxon Hill Forest as a community resource for conservation and recreation is threatened. Saxon Hill Forest is one of only two (together with Indian Brook Reservoir) large natural areas open to Essex Town and Village residents for recreation.

For more than 30 years, under the guidance of the Town Plan and the unique protections of the Resource Preservation District-Industrial (RPD-I) zoning regulations, the majority of the Saxon Hill Forest has been preserved for conservation and passive recreation by the public. With the newly revised Town Plan, the Planning Commission is considering changes that would severely jeopardize these protections.

In order to maintain the established protections of Saxon Hill Forest for the residents of Essex, we feel the PC should retain the wording below exactly as it was approved in the Town Plan in 2006:
11.12.2: Ensure that residential uses are not to be allowed in the RPD-I District.
11.13.1: Retain the present zoning provisions specifying the amount of land to be reserved for recreation/conservation uses.

Please join us at the Planning Commission meeting at 6:30 pm on Thursday, May 27, 2010 at Founders Elementary School (33 Founders Road, off Sand Hill Road in Essex) and urge the PC to reverse the changes that have been introduced.

Other pertinent statutes include Title 12 sec. 169 Ejectment, and the consumer fraud statutes (9 V.S.A. Chapter 63 sec 2451-62)–Vermont courts have ruled that violations of the habitability law constitute consumer fraud and tenants can sue for treble damages; fire safety codes that regulate among other things smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

It may have been a worthwhile course when I first began my career as a Realtor, but the important and interesting information was set aside to better cover basic information all real estate agents, Realtors or not, should, and usually do, already know: what documents to ask for from a condo association, or the necessity of an agency disclosure as  just two examples. A week later, a national speaker gave a lunch presentation for the Northwest Vermont Board of Realtors and stated he too had seen an instructor provide the questions and answers. It seems like the practice is more wide spread than this one instructor.

The low-point of the course came on day two, when the instructor read question after question directly from the exam and then provided the answers. Well, that moment or during one of the sales pitches just after the instructor asked us to pull out the course evaluation and choose the option that stated the instructor did not make any sales pitches to the class.

The National Association of Realtors touts this designation as one both necessary and exceptional. And for what it is worth, I can now add the initials ABR after my name.  Any 8-year old could have passed the course, what with the instructor providing both questions and answers.

I’ve found that some of the continuing education courses offered by the local lenders and real estate attorneys very helpful and informative and I think I’ll stick with those courses instead of additional designations.

Missing Dog -

The dog, Gus, is small (20-30 lbs) with tan short hair, black muzzle and dark Lab-like ears.

Recently I received some pretty disgusting junk mail from some so called Saint Mathew’s Church in Oklahoma, and I discovered a way to opt out of junk mail on  case by case basis: USPS Form 1500. This form tells the USPS not to send any mail from the offending company. Form 1500 must not be used much because the neither the clerk nor the manager had seen it before. While the form is designed to stop the receipt of unwanted pornography, the supreme court in Rowan v. USPS stated that only the addressee can determine what they believe is pornographic. If a person feels a dry-goods catalog is pornographic, then they can request it not be sent. The junk mail from Saint Mathew’s Church in Oklahoma is certainly worse than any dry-goods catalog.

While looking for ways to curb my junk mail I ran across Ecofuture.com which has an interesting page discussing reasons to use a temporary change of address form rather than a permanent form.

Some ugly facts about junk mail: The average American receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year.  Almost half –44%– of the junk mail ends up in a landfill. Almost $320 million in  tax money is used to dispose of junk mail, and more than 100 million trees a year are used to create pulpwood for paper products–that’s like deforesting the Rocky Mountain National Park every 4 months.

In 1999, buyers who went online in search for a home were in the minority – only 37 percent of buyers used the Internet in their home search, according to data from the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Today, 90 percent of buyers are searching online.

Nationally, median home values over the past decade have increased more than 25 percent, from $137,600 in November 1999 to $172,600 in November 2009 (the most recent existing-home data available). Fewer people are buying detached, single family homes – 82 percent in 1999 compared to 78 percent in 2009 – but more people are buying homes in suburban neighborhoods – 46 percent in 1999 compared to 54 percent today.

Buyers themselves have also changed. A smaller proportion of married couples are buying homes these days; while married couples comprised 68 percent of all home purchases at the beginning of this century, they represent 60 percent of all buyers today. Single men and women have made up the difference – single men purchased 10 percent of all homes last year, compared to only 7 percent 10 years ago. Single women now represent more than one-fifth of all home buyers – 21 percent, up from 15 percent in 1999.

So why are real estate agencies working and charging as if it were still 1999?

Public Meeting: There will be a joint meeting of the Planning Commission, Development Review Board and Design Advisory Board Joint Meeting on Tuesday, December 22 at 5:30 PM at the Firehouse Center for Visual Arts.  The agenda is below.

• Dinner and Refreshments
• Agenda & Introductions
• Historic Building Materials – The Commission has embarked on a discussion of historic building materials in the last few months and wants to hear from the DRB and DAB on the issues they face when applications for material replacement are in front of them.
• Downtown/ Waterfront Plan Scope of Work – The Commission will continue its discussion of the Downtown / Waterfront Plan Scope of Work and budget.
• Adjourn