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Plan seeks neighborhood leaders in capital city
Sarah Hinckley, Times Argus (Vermont)
MONTPELIER – Nearly 75 residents gathered Monday evening from 14 designated neighborhoods to figure out how to keep their neighbors safe and warm this winter.
The meeting was part of Montpelier’s CAN! – Capital Area Neighborhoods, an emergency planning project to aid the city in responding to emergencies this upcoming winter season.
“What we’re really worried about is this is going to be an urgent situation that is going to creep in and affect all of us, not just some of us,” said Mayor Mary Hooper to the crowd. “You all are the beginning of our effort to bring about neighborhood associations.”
With rising fuel prices, Vermont is preparing for a winter that is likely to affect everyone in one way or another. What may seem like a small crisis in most situations is likely to be exacerbated in the economic conditions that face many, Gwendolyn Hallsmith, director of the city’s planning and community development department explained.
(26 August 2008)
Recommended by Carolyn Baker who writes:
Remarkable solutions In Vermont – I’m very impressed with how the people of Montpelier are pulling together to prepare for a wicked winter.
Rediscovering bicycles, and her inner kid
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Los Angeles Times
She may grump about high gas prices, but they’ve reunited mother and son — on two wheels.
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When school was out in June, my 13-year-old son, Travis, and I drove to Sport Chalet for a new bike to replace his beater, which had finally lost its brakes. He chose a 12-speed, perfect for street riding, and I bought a little finger-triggered bell, the kind I had as a kid, for my own bike.
My husband gave me the bike a couple of birthdays ago, a pearly-green, elegant cruiser with seven gears. I didn’t ride it much, though — too many SUVs and people on cellphones clogging the narrow streets of Corona del Mar, where I live. At one point I bought a stand, converting the bike into an exercycle, and rode it in the living room while reading the morning paper. Travis rode it while watching TV, the cat in the basket, the two of them speeding off in place.
We hadn’t ridden together in quite a while, but now Travis’ new bike and my barely ridden one, with whitewalls as fresh as new paint, were an invitation. Yet, as we left the store, I worried: Would he want to ride with me?
(25 August 2008)
New bike commuters hit the classroom, then the road
Ben Arnoldy, Christian Science Monitor
The rush of new cyclists, created by high gas prices, is driving up demand for bike safety classes.
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Like many Americans, Tara Collins hadn’t bicycled much since middle school. That changed this year when she started paying $50 to fill up her gas tank.
Since early July Ms. Collins has been biking to her job in San Francisco. Now she’s sitting in Bert Hill’s bicycle safety course – along with 31 others – after a close shave with a van.
“When that happened I thought, ‘Wow, there probably are things I could learn about safety,’ ” says Ms. Collins. “I haven’t been on a bike in years, and even when I did, it wasn’t in traffic.”
The high price of gas is creating a surge in bicycle commuting across the country, not just in West Coast cities but in places like Louisville, Ky., and Charlotte, N.C. The rush of newbies has triggered tensions with drivers unaccustomed to sharing the road, and driven cyclists to seek out traffic training.
(25 August 2008)
Pinching pennies like your grandparents
Allison Linn, MSNBC
As food prices rise, some are rediscovering old-fashioned home economics
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In today’s fast-paced society, the Hillbilly Housewife Web site – with its traditional recipes for making cornmeal mush and tips for turning leftover rice into breakfast pancakes – would seem to be a relic of a bygone era.
But with food and gas prices rising at a faster pace than most paychecks, the site devoted to frugal ways to feed a family has recently seen traffic increase by a third, to about 300,000 unique visitors a month. Susanne Myers, who took over the site from a friend about a year ago, says she’s been deluged with e-mails from people looking for cheap ways to fill their families’ stomachs.
“Especially toward the end of the month I get a lot of e-mails from women, (and) they’re pretty desperate,” Myers said.
(26 August 2008)
