Category Archives: Vermont

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 • No comments yet

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.

What the Neighbors are Saying

Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 by • No comments yet

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.

Weekly Sampler: Fire Victim Gratitude

Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 by • 2 comments

This past week saw about 200 messages posted in the various neighborhood forums hosted by Front Porch Forum in and around Burlington, VT. People often ask for a concise summary of what members submit to their neighborhood forum… I’ll share some of the topics from the past week. If this works, perhaps I’ll repeat in the weeks ahead. In no particular order:

  • Thank you to neighbors from fire victims in Essex
  • Wireless broadband in Westford
  • Seeking neighbor to sew on buttons in Burlington
  • Sugarshack open-door offer in Westford
  • Pick-up basketball game discussion
  • Senior center programs announced
  • Seeking bridge game, apartment, drum lessons, bike route, sled run, contractor
  • Sidewalk snowplowing in Essex
  • School Commissioner update in Burlington’s Ward 5
  • Many people seeking leads for home snow removal
  • Movie night at Euro Gourmet for Five Sisters neighborhood
  • NYC dog seeking new home in Vermont
  • Impeachment petition circulating in various towns
  • Free wine rack, car seat, and lots of other stuff
  • Snow parking ban announcements
  • Seeking off-street parking during bans
  • Housing regs discussion in the Old North End
  • For sale: snow shoes, yoga lessons, GIS services, singing Valentines
  • Lots of municipal news in Winooski… ice rink status, etc.
  • Waterfront airshow comments
  • Found: aqua blue fleece hat
  • Available: housekeeper, babysitter, real estate appraiser
  • Lots of new member introductions
  • And, a week can’t go by without… Lost cat!

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.

MLK Day of Community Service

Posted on Friday, January 12, 2007 by • No comments yet

Rob Filitor, an AmeriCorps State Volunteer for Champlain Housing Trust, had an idea… help people to give some community service on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to benefit their own neighborhood, or another one nearby. So he approached Front Porch Forum and we worked out a couple options. If you’re local to Chittenden County, Vermont, consider this:

1. People ask how to make their neighborhood forum successful… it’s straight forward. Tell your neighbors about it and ask them to sign up and use it! Several Front Porch Forum members will be fanning out across their own neighborhoods and towns to distribute flyers door-to-door on or around MLK Day (Jan. 15). You can do this in your area too! Members can download a neighborhood-specific flyer at http://frontporchforum.com… click the Pitch In link.

2. A group of AmeriCorps State Volunteerss will be walking across downtown Burlington and the Old North End distributing FPF flyers door-to-door, and they’re looking for other folks to join them on this national day of community service. If you’re interested, please RSVP to Rob Filitor (rmfilitor_AT_gmail_DOT_com) by Jan. 13. They will meet at Radio Bean on N. Winooski Ave. at Pearl St. in Burlington on Jan. 15 at noon.

Since Rob’s notion, I’ve heard more tales today:

3. The dean of Rock Point School is lining up high school students to distribute flyers across the New North End of Burlington on or around MLK Day… that’s thousands of households!

4. A member spoke to a group of retirees at the Charlotte Senior Center yesterday about Front Porch Forum and was surprised by the enthusiastic response… this use of the internet appeals to more than just the young and tech savvy apparently.

5. The superintendent of a local school district told me she plans to hand deliver copies of a local newspaper story about Front Porch Forum to the houses in her neighborhood next week when she walks her pooch each morning.

And there’s more that I never hear about… at least not directly. I got a call from a nearby Post Office reporting that Front Porch Forum flyers were showing up in mailboxes… that’s a no no (unless each piece has postage affixed). Not sure who did that. And a friend reported getting a flyer on her windshield on the other side of the county… wasn’t me. Wow! This is getting downright contagious. Thanks to the dozens (hundreds?) of local folks who are spreading the word… let’s keep it rolling! The people who join, the more valuable the service becomes for everyone.

Why you don’t have running Water

Posted on Thursday, January 4, 2007 by • No comments yet

Cathy Resmer writes today on 802 Online about one hopeful prediction for a resurgence of local news and community newspapers in 2007. She quotes a Seattle Times writer:

The story of the death of the Valley Daily News is that it blew it when it combined with its partner, the Bellevue Journal-American, into one amorphous, suburban blob.

Small is beautiful, eh? She shares the Times guy’s opinion about the value of local news, but wonders about the medium:

I do, however, see more and more people signing up for the Front Porch Forum service. I just recommended it to someone today. It’s not a newspaper, but it’s a great way to share local information. For example, yesterday my forum included an item from the Winooski City Engineer, explaining the water leak that’s developed on my street. I don’t know how else the city would have communicated that to me, other than sending out an email. The Free Press wouldn’t have covered it in the same way.

Of course, FPF in no way replaces good investigative journalism, but at least it helps neighbors communicate. I don’t know why the city hasn’t come up with a service like this on its own. It seems like a no-brainer.

Indeed, we’re seeing more local officials using Front Porch Forum to share news with their citizens, like the good souls in Winooski. And rarely do our postings resemble citizen journalism. Front Porch Forum helps neighbors connect and foster community within neighborhoods.

Local Politics Online

Posted on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 by • No comments yet

Many of the neighborhoods that use Front Porch Forum end up with some of their local officials on their online forum. Ten neighborhoods in Ward 5 of Burlington, Vermont, for example, have the following on board: 2 state reps., 2 city councilors, 2 school board members, and various city officials, such as a police lieutenant and a community development specialist.

Officials report to their constituents on hot topics. If they wander too far off the path and get into politics (vs. reporting on things), then they usually hear about it directly or through the neighborhood forums (so that lots of other citizens see the rejoinder too)… so they tread carefully. Taxpayers also toss questions to the officials through the forums… “I wonder if our city councilor can report on the status of the construction along Pine Street?”

Today The Local Onliner reported on an interesting development:

OhioElects performs targeted searches of state, local and national political Web sites as part of its broader political coverage. Hundreds of sites have been crawled and indexed in the site’s first go-round. The site itself hopes to serve as a portal for all types of contextual political advertising.

Further, I recently accepted an invitation to participate in a session at Harvard later this month focused on the internet’s role in local politics. The event is co-hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Sunlight Foundation. I don’t think it’s online anywhere yet.

Smalltown Papers get it Right

Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006 by • No comments yet

Weekly and monthly community newspapers are sharing neighbor-helping-neighbor stories emanating from Front Porch Forum lately. The Essex Reporter, Charlotte News, Shelburne News and North Avenue News each ran features in December.  More coming in January.

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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