Category Archives: Burlington

Treehouses Open to Any Kid

Posted on Sunday, February 4, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

Here’s a video about the wonderful Forever Young Treehouses organization. They build amazing treehouses, and, the kicker… the structures are accessible to just about anyone, including kids, like my oldest son, who use wheelchairs. Our family is shown enjoying the treehouse in Oakledge Park… a 15 minute walk from our home in Burlington, Vermont… overlooking Lake Champlain… incredible. Thanks to Bill Allen and his crew for all they do to keep so many folks “forever young!”

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We’ve held several low-key community events in this treehouse… every neighborhood should be so lucky.

North End Armory sparks Access Debate

Posted on Saturday, February 3, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

The City of Burlington picked up the Gosse Ct armory cheap from the National Guard in 2005… but what to do with it? Local media has reported some of the discussion about what to do with the dilapidated building.

More ideas and debate have surfaced this week through Front Porch Forum. One member suggested a fitness center. A neighbor responded that we had plenty of opportunities for fitness. In defense of his original idea, Patrick Standen responded to his neighborhood forum:

With all due respect I think I am a pretty good judge as to what is accessible and not having spent 30 years in a wheelchair, served on federal, state and local access boards and functioned as an ADA consultant–that’s the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sadly, our YMCA does not provide “A fine fitness center… for all abilities” because it is completely wheelchair inaccessible. Having worked closely with the Y, accessibility is one of their top concerns, but their current building cannot accommodate visitors w/mobility impairments–it is an embarrassment to the Y. The only solution will be a new building.

As to the beaches and sidewalks, have you ever tried to access the lake from a wheelchair? Burlington lacks any wheelchair-friendly accommodation to the lake and the well-lit sidewalks may be lit but not very wheelchair friendly during the winter months.

I don’t mean to sermonize, but it is just this insensitive lack of awareness that keeps Vermonters with disabilities as second-class citizens without the same rights and opportunities as the larger population. While Burlington prides itself on being “progressive” and “liberal” it is in the dark ages concerning accessibility and disability rights.

Let’s keep the dialogue going…

Old timey Burlington, Vermont

As a father of a 1st grader who depends on his wheelchair to get around this city, I can only add… Amen Patrick.

Long-Lost Brothers Reunite thru Forum!

Posted on Saturday, February 3, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

Well… a few days ago it was a lost cat in Hinesburg finding it’s owner through Front Porch Forum. This week it’s a heartwarming dogs’ tale, in the form of two letters from the canines themselves to each other through the Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum.

I saw you, you saw me, and we sniffed each other last weekend while our owners were cross-country skiing on the golf course. We didn’t have much time to play, but there was something strangely familiar about you. Did you notice that, too?

Your owner said your name was Cadbury and that you were born in Fletcher on February 3rd and going to be 4. My owner said I also was born in Fletcher on February 3rd but going to be 5. My owner later realized she was wrong and we figured out that we’re actually brothers.

Please have your owner contact mine so we can have a sniffy, tearful reunion.

Sincerely, Tucker B. Cockapoo (B stands for Black)

Dearest Tucker!!!!

Yes, indeed, it is I. Cadbury S Pickle. It was as we sniff-detected — but our humans too befuddled to realize — we are indeed twins, or perhaps some from amongst quintuplets, one of us (you) stolen by aliens shortly after birth!

I will make it up to you bigtime, I promise. Senior by reason of birth order and disposition, I will be the big brother you never knew you wanted!

If you phone, I will listen to your barky little voice on the answer machine and howl my regards.

If your human contacts mine no doubt we can look forward to a play date, or several. I have many wonderful children-friends here who would be pleased to make your acquaintance. And two (non-related probably) Cockapoos in my neighborhood, a black cutie pie named Puck (whom I insist on peeing on, for which my mom is too embarrassed to let me play with Pucky again) and a winsome apricot named Putney.

All this time and only a block or two away! You seem to have landed on your feet, materially speaking, with that winsome sweater-jacket even though the sun was shining, and four smashing orange booties! For myself, well, my keeper is nice enough, but has Literary Pretensions. So my household is eclectic, some would say Bohemian, but the neighbors watch out for me and what I lack in couture I make up for with an abundance of good bones.

Happy birthday sweet and long-lost brother.

Cadbury S Pickle (S stands for Schmutzy, Yiddish for dirty; as I said, my Keeper presents as literate, sigh, don’t ask).

Weekly Sampler: Broadband Options?

Posted on Monday, January 29, 2007 by • 3 comments

Another 200 messages posted this past week in the various neighborhood forums hosted by Front Porch Forum in and around Burlington, VT. Here are descriptions of some of the postings. Seems that more and more people are posting a variant of “what’s the best broadband option here?” on their neighborhood forums.  This is our second pass at this exercise… check out the first Weekly Sampler:

  • Seeking broadband advice from neighbors
  • Pick-up basketball in Westford
  • Public safety initiatives in Winooski
  • Waterfront air show – pros and cons
  • Seeking a particular issue of National Geographic (twice!)
  • Broadband options in Westford
  • Free tax-prep program
  • Why can’t we recycle more plastic types?
  • Essex town-village merger
  • Meeting announcements for Route 15 planning, Burlington zoning re-write, online safety training, waterfront planning, Burlington armory fate, senior center planning, and more
  • Baker-for-a-day fundraiser
  • Free garden plot in Lakeside neighborhood
  • Seeking Ottawa travel tips
  • Bolton condo available
  • Seeking, selling and giving away:  washer, dryer, fridge, weights for seniors, couch, minivan, houses, hockey skates, router, monitor, cable modem, skis, etc.
  • Bike path test plowing
  • Tutors, babysitters and preschool slots available
  • Slowing down speeding traffic in neighborhood
  • Dog seeks walker
  • Neighborhood beach security
  • Neighborhood parent group forming
  • Ride needed to WRJ
  • Status of ice skating venues
  • Global climate change study groups forming
  • Keys found
  • Time bank launch
  • Car break-ins and hit and run
  • Local baker pitches wares
  • Art studio opening
  • Winter festival news
  • City news from Winooski
  • Five Spice fire
  • Police join more neighborhood forums
  • Neighborhood forum flyering plans
  • Old North End movie night
  • Neighborhood game night
  • And lots of cat postings: lost, found and sitters needed

Neighbors Rein in Traffic

Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 by • 1 comment

Too many cars and trucks driving too fast… that’s a problem that’s been plaguing residential areas since the Model T. But it’s getting worse. Americans own more cars per capita than ever before and we’re spending more time behind the wheel too… and if I had a couple minutes to spare I’d find some references to back up those claims.

And so a collective response by neighbors to rein in traffic must have started back in Henry Ford’s time too.

Now we’re seeing a new twist on it. Neighbors are using Front Porch Forum to talk about traffic problems and work on fixes. Some Burlington examples:

1. Residents along Home and Flynn Avenues bear a heavy load with truck traffic. They’ve posted dozens of messages on their neighborhood forum about this issue as it relates to the Southern Connector (both for and against, as well as some interesting middle-ground ideas). They also worked with one of their City Councilors to improve the signage regarding use of the ear-splitting jake brakes by trucks.

2. Birchcliff had a nightly speeder. One post on their neighborhood forum and the police stopped the offender that same night… problem solved.

3. Five Sisters residents were concerned about downhill traffic as it sped past South/Calahan Park on Locust St. Working with the Dept. of Public Works, traffic calming features were incorporated into the street.

4. Killarney Dr in the New North End… residents are concerned with teenager speeders exiting onto North Ave. A neighbor who is a police officer used the forum to encourage neighbors to identify the problem drivers and talk to their parents directly.

5. Lots of other neighborhoods have used their neighborhood forum to start conversations and eventually enter into DPW’s formal traffic calming process.

Concerned about traffic in your area? Post a note to your neighborhood forum and see if others feel the same way. Getting organized is a first step to finding a reasonable solution.

Military Air Show Debate

Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

Last summer I was enjoying a day at the beach in Oakledge park with my family and some friends. Our four small children were thrilled to be in the water and combing the short stretch of sand for little treasures. As I stood where the bike path terminates along the back of the beach, I looked out and surveyed my brood thinking like a lifeguard… how long would it take me to get to my three-year-old who was wading in beyond bellybutton depth… what if my wife slipped and dropped our newborn in the water… typical father duty.

I can’t begin to describe then the shock when a fighter jet exploded through the air just above our heads. The earth shook. My ears rang. The jet, flying so low that we had no warning before it burst over the trees a hundred feet behind me, was on us in an instant.

I didn’t have one second to protect my family… not even an instant to lay a comforting hand on my oldest son who sat in his wheelchair next to me. Just BOOM!

Welcome to Burlington’s waterfront air show 2006.

For the past couple of weeks the messages against the air show have been multiplying across a number of neighborhood forums. This is a great use of Front Porch Forum. Other members have responded in support of the air show. Most of the comments break down along predictable lines… anti-war = anti-air show and vice versa.

Perhaps the growing number of people against the Iraq war who find the air show objectionable, and therefore wish it canceled, miss an opportunity. I still shake when I remember that instant… I had no idea what was happening, only that some terribly violent power was exploding over my children. I was powerless.

So, while my family was in no real danger, this facsimile of modern warfare in the homeland was a deep-felt reminder of what the U.S. military is doing to people in Iraq (and elsewhere) for longer than our involvement in WWII. My wife and I were able to comfort our kids as they all sobbed, terrified, with “it’s only the air show.” What do parents say in real war zones to their surviving children?

Thus the opportunity. Don’t protest the imitation; rather, use it to protest the real thing. While the military jets streak across the waterfront next summer, excite the local population to imagine that this isn’t a patriotic celebration of our might… instead, use it as a sobering moment of solidarity with humans caught up in war.

Imagine Burlington under attack. Imagine missiles from those jets slamming into the hospital, the water treatment plant, the power plant… bombs dropping on neighborhoods, schools, bridges. Those are our jets after all. Our guns (made in Burlington), our neighbors and relatives in uniform. Only seems fair that we all get an annual reminder of what we’re visiting on other communities half-way around the world.

Gannett Pursues Small Businesses

Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

The Local Onliner reports today:

Gannett, via its Planet Discover subsidiary, says it will start providing its newspapers and TV stations with search marketing help… In the last six months, newspapers have begun to really embrace search and extending their marketplace to the small businesses, he [Planet Discover Head Terry Millard] notes.

The end goal, Millard adds, is to expand the advertiser base. While Planet Discover’s local search guides compete with Yellow Pages, “it isn’t all Yellow Pages,” he emphasizes. There is a layer of media below that: the community shoppers, things like that. There is a huge market of businesses that aren’t going to spend $3,500 a year,” the average for Yellow Pages buys. “But they’ll spend $100 a month.”

Millard says the effort starts with Gannett, where Planet Discover has already launched search efforts for it 110 newspapers, and is now gearing up to convert its 21 TV stations. Other Planet Discover clients are also being asked to participate. They are mostly newspapers but also include some verticals such as travel.

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out at our local Gannett outlet, the Burlington Free Press.

What the Neighbors are Saying

Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

At one point in my past, I led a 20-year-old trade association of New England utilities with about 30 employees. We took pride in the 100 or so letters we received each year from members who took the time to tell us how pleased they were with our work.

So I’m tickled pink (to channel my mother) that shiny new and relatively tiny Front Porch Forum hears from it’s happy members in droves. Here are three unsolicited comments received just this evening:

Thanks for creating such a great local resource – we really love getting our Front Porch Forums in our mailboxes. -A.P. in The Quarry Neighborhood Forum

I think that you are providing a wonderful service. I don’t know very many neighbors at this point, so I am hoping this will open the door to new friendships. I will certainly encourage people who are not signed up to do so. -J.E. in Bay Creek Neighborhood Forum

Another success: I just received, delivered to my door, 3 packages of diapers for my son. A wonderful town member did not want to throw away unused diapers, so she posted on Front Porch Forum. I replied and she dropped them off! I will be thanking her with some of my homemade bread this week. What a great way to connect, reuse, recycle and overall develop a wonderful sense of community! -H.A. in Westford Neighborhood Forum

More such comments live on our Testimonials page.

Block Parties Popping Up all Over

Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 by • 1 comment

Human beings are social creatures. The current high degree of individual isolation in the United States appears to this layperson to be at an all-time high. The culprits? Who knows? Television, suburban sprawl, migration and job turnover, fear of strangers and crime… the internet?

So… here’s some good news. In many of the neighborhoods in which Front Porch Forum hosts a forum, people are throwing block parties in order to meet their neighbors (and reconnect with those they already know). In most cases, the neighborhood forum was both the catalyst to gather and the means to issue the invitation. In others, people are using their forum to invite a broader swath of the neighborhood than just the folks they know.

One forum member in the Old North End challenged her neighbors:

I appreciate reading everyone’s experience and stories on how to solve the recycling problem and crime. However, I think one of the long term solutions is to stop being reactive and start having discussions about how to raise the social capital of this neighborhood. Can we start talking about events, social activities, neighborly gestures and other positive things we can start doing to benefit the neighborhood?

After ten days and many good responses, she wrote again to the neighborhood:

Hi – Thanks to everyone who responded to my call for social capital building. To start us off, I would like to invite everyone in the ONE Central Forum to my place on Sunday from 1-4 pm for dessert and coffee. If you’d like to bring something, that would be great… but not necessary.

Other recent examples occurred in: Hinesburg, Richmond, South Burlington, Charlotte, and neighborhoods in Burlington: Birchcliff, Appletree Point, Staniford, and many in the Five Sisters.

Local Reviews from Strangers vs. Neighbors

Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 by • Comments are off for this post

Millions of dollars are flowing into dot.com start-ups that provide the public a place to read and write reviews on just about anything local… restaurants, stores, etc. Some include: insiderpages.com, judysbook.com, riffs.com, yelp.com, and zipingo.com. Blogosphere comments swirl around their relative merits and their mangement ups and downs… hard to hear the true tune through the din.

Some of the comments seen recently: Rahul Pathak, Naffziger’s Net, Greg Sterling, Andy Sack, TechCrunch and another. It goes on and on, of course. Where’s there’s money invested, there’s commentary.

Front Porch Forum does local review too, but it’s a different model… the reviews are requested and then the reviews come from nearby neighbors. So (1) the reviews are demand driven, and (2) there’s credibility because the advice is coming from the person around the corner with his/her real identity provided. And this is only one of many uses that our neighborhood forums are supporting… classifieds, community organizing, news, etc. It all adds up to helping neighbors connect and foster community within neighborhoods.

In our first city (Burlington, VT), we’re hosting 130 adjacent neighborhood forums that in sum cover the entire metro-area. Five to ten percent of the local households have joined in our first few months with dozens of neighborhoods in the 20-40% range and a couple exceeding 90% already. And it’s all driven by word of mouth and a spinkle of local media attention.

About Blog

Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more

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