Anais Mitchell flood relief benefit concert at Goddard College Sunday

Anais Mitchell is scheduled to perform at Haybarn Theater at Goddard College Sunday for a flood relief benefit concert.

It's billed as Anais Mitchell’s Transcontinental Revue with John Elliott and Jack Wilson.

Also, a crew from Three Penny Taproom will be there pouring beer and wine.

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online, by calling 802-322-1721 or by visiting Buch Spieler Music on Langdon Street in Montpelier.

Doors to open at 6:30 p.m. and the show is to start 7:30 p.m.

Checkout Mitchell online at anaismitchell.com.

Leaf peepers are coming

MONTPELIER — Signs recently popped up around town that read, "Tour Bus Loading and Unloading."

That means busses full of leaf peepers could be on their way any day now to spend lots of money, I mean, look at beautiful fall leaves.

The signs marking tour bus parking are at three locations. 

There's one out front of Trinity United Methodist Church, one outside TD Bank at the intersection of State and Main and another at State Street in front of the Pavilion building.

McGillicuddy's celebrates 15 years

MONTPELIER — Go for a pint of Guinness and stay for a $4.75 burger.

All this week, McGillicuddy's has been celebrating their 15th anniversary with food and drink deals.

Tomorrow they're rolling back their menu to 1996 and serving up hamburgers for $4.75.

On Friday, the bar is bringing back bartenders from 15 years ago.

And Saturday is Oktoberfest with two bands, hotdogs, burgers and beer and no cover charge. Ladies wear your dirndl and gents your lederhosen.

McGillicuddy's is wrapping up the celebration on Sunday with, you guessed it, football. The Patriots are playing the Raiders.

Is Andrew Brewer buying The Men's Store?

MONTPELIER — Rumors started circulating a few weeks ago about Andrew Brewer buying The Men's Store.

I spoke with Brewer about it when the rumors first came up, and he confirmed that he indeed was in the process of trying to buy the State Street store and that he would call me when the lawyers had done their thing.

Well, it's been several weeks now, and the word on the street is that Brewer's lawyer and the building's owner, Jeff Jacobs, have hit some snags negotiating a lease agreement.

So is Brewer going to buy The Men's Store? It sounds like he wants to, but whether it will actually happen, as Donald Rumsfeld might say, is a known unknown at this time.

Ribbon cutting ceremony at Turntable Park to honor Garth Genge

MONTPELIER — Tuesday afternoon city officials held a "ribbon cutting" ceremony at Turntable Park on Stone Cutters Way to honor the work of Garth Genge.

Genge was a community development specialist for the city. He is now terminally ill and Turntable Park was the last project he completed with the city.

Mayor Mary Hooper said she came Tuesday to honor the work of Genge, and that it's because of him that the Turntable Park project was completed.

Genge spoke about taking a project from inception to completion, "It's a matter of friendships." 

"We couldn't have done it without him," Director of Planning and Community Development Gwendolyn Hallsmith said Tuesday.

"He was an anchor. He was an inspiration," she said.

City Manager William Fraser said of the park, "We were dreaming this up when I came here 16 years ago."

Indeed. Turntable Park has been on the to-do list since the early 1990s as part of an effort to revitalize Stone Cutters Way from a bumpy dirt road into a commercial and retail area where Montpelierites will shop and that will increase the city's Grand List value.

While the new buildings have helped beef up the Grand List, aside from Hunger Mountain Coop, there's not much retail on Stone Cutters Way.

The final parcel to be developed is next to Turntable Park where the so-called "salt shed" used to be located until it was tore down a couple weeks ago.

There was once a grand vision for Turntable Park, but financial constraints forced the project to be much more modest. You can learn more about the project's history here.

The cost to build the park was roughly $280,000. A grant covered about $200,000 of the bill and the city picked up the rest.

Genge also played an important role in the project to rebuild the Montpelier Senior Activity Center after it was destroyed by a fire in December 2009.

City Councilor Alan Weiss described Genge with one word — "integrity."

District Energy Project

MONTPELIER — The district energy project voters approved in June is still progressing.

The state government and the city of Montpelier are in the process of hammering out agreements. I've requested copies of said agreements, but was told that they aren't ready for public consumption, so I have no idea what's in them and therefore neither do you.

Here are some documents though that folks may find interesting.

Memorandum of Understanding between the State and the City — final version 1.7

Department of Energy's Environmental Assessment

Deparment of Energy's Finding of No Significant Impact

No Taser Committee tonight

MONTPELIER — The Taser Committee will not be meeting tonight as had been scheduled.

"We are not going to meet this evening," Committee Member Marilyn Mode said in an email this morning, "but rather are taking the week to review materials, etc. We plan to reconvene next Tuesday as usual."

Read what happened at the last and final public hearing here. At both public hearings, only one person stood up to support the use of Tasers by Montpelier police officers.

 

Sidewalk repair at Spring Street and Main

MONTPELIER — A DuBois Construction crew is working this afternoon repairing a section of the sidewalk at the Main and Spring streets roundabout.

They're replacing three sections on the northwest side of the roundabout at the crosswalk where Main meet Spring Street meet across the street from Central Vermont Medical Center.

The 24-hour Comic Challenge is Saturday

MONTPELIER — It starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and ends 24 hours later. It's Montpelier's second annual 24-hour Comic Challenge.

This event is for anyone who's ever thought to themselves, "I would love to sit down for 24 consecutive hours and create a 24-page comic book from scratch."

If that's you. This is it. This challenge is for you. I dare you.

All you have to do is, head over to City Hall Saturday morning with a stack of bristol, some pencils and an erasure. You don't even need to have an idea for what you're comic book will look like, in fact, you shouldn't.

At 10 a.m. the clock starts ticking and the goal is to create a 24-page comic book in 24 hours. That comes out to one page every hour.

The idea for the 24-hour Comic Challenge dates back to 1990. It's more of a dare than it is a competition.

And the rules of the dare, as outlined by the creator of the 24-hour comic Scott McCloud, are pretty simple.

1. Everything has to be done when the clock stops. That means all inking, paste-up, coloring (if you want it) and proofreading must occur in the 24-hour period.

2. No direct preparation should happen before the 24-hour clock starts ticking. It's acceptable to gather supplies, reference materials, food, music, etc.

3. Pages can be any size and composed on any material. In his book "24 Hour Comics," McCloud writes, "Carve 'em in stone; print 'em with rubber stamps; draw 'em on your kitchen walls with a magic marker. Anything."

Of course, considering that this particular comic challenge will be held at city hall, drawing it on a wall with a marker probably won't work.

But that's the thing about the 24-hour comic dare, you don't have to embark on it only in a group setting, or on any particular day. You can do it whenever and wherever you want.

It's just that Saturday is the "official" 24-hour Comic Day. All over the world, people will be making comics quickly.

McCloud suggests not thinking about a plot or characters before the 24-hour challenge.

"As far as planning goes," he writes, "you can think about it beforehand, but I recommend improvisation as the most satisfying route."

Last year, the first group comics challenge was held in Montpelier at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.

The event is organized by Daniel Barlow — a lifelong comics fan.

Barlow said he did his first 24-hour comic in 2005 when he was living in Brattleboro.

People came from all over New England to participate in the Brattleboro challenge, and so he and fellow comics devotees felt like there's a community that wants to form.

The result is the Trees and Hills Comics Group of Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. 

Last year, Barlow said, they had about 25 participants take part in the 24-hour challenge.

"We're really thankful for the support from the city of Montpelier," he said for allowing the use of the city hall and the $1,000 donation from the Montpelier Community Arts Fund.

The challenge is sponsored by local businesses such as Capitol Grounds, Positive Pie and Julios.

In addition to the Montpelier Community Arts Fund, funding for the event was provided by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment of the Arts.

Also on Saturday at 10:30 a.m., Barlow said there's a workshop scheduled at Kellogg-Hubbard Library to teach kids how to draw monsters.

Visit Trees and Hill Comics Group website.

Denis, Ricker & Brown leave downtown Montpelier

MONTPELIER — Over the weekend, insurance agency Denis, Ricker & Brown, Inc. moved from their downtown State Street address to new digs at 2 Pioneer St.

The lease at the 17 State St. building was expiring, and so Partner Peter Ricker said they had the option to buy that building and upgrade it, or move.

He said, when they ran the numbers, moving to the Pioneer Street building was a no-brainer.

The new office, located next to Lazerwash across the street from the V.F.W. Post 792 just off Route 2, Ricker said is less expensive, it has better parking for the agency's 17 employees and its clients, and they don't have deal with upgrading an old building in historic downtown Montpelier. 

While finishing touches on the new office space are still underway the insurance agency is open for business.

Ricker said he didn't know how long the agency operated out of the 17 State St. location, but it was since before he was born.

The Brown Insurance Agency dates back to 1865 in Montpelier. In 1983, Denis and Ricker, Inc. purchased Brown — located at the State Street address — to create Denis, Ricker & Brown, Inc.