M.B.Neisner moderating the Killington
2007 Town Meeting 

Killington's exercise in civic responsibility went off with few controversies at 2007 Town Meeting held today. Well over 200 people, including 190 local voters, attended the meeting held in the Sherburne Elementary School gymnasium

The day started with the school board meeting, where except for a few grumbles about the State of Vermont's education finance law, Act 68, there was very little discussion. Primary discussion on the school budget centered on the computation of equivalent students, and the impact of tuition students on the calculation of per student expenses. In a voice vote, the town passed a school budget of almost $1.3 million to fund education of the towns children.

At approximately 10:10 AM, M.B. Neisner called the Town Meeting to order. This year, the meeting was a model of civility with no ad hominum disagreements taking place. In the selectman's race, Jim Blackman beat out Chris Karr to win the seat being vacated by Walter "Butch" Findeisen. Of the almost 200 votes cast, Jim Blackman won the seat with about 59% of the vote cast in his favor. Congratulations Jim!

The item which brought most residents to Town Meeting, item 7 to assess a $0.03 real estate tax to fund economic development, barely warranted a discussion. Chris Karr and Bill Bauer, the local businessmen who originally proposed the measure, asked the town to delay voting on the measure to allow for more time to develop a community consensus on funding, and to understand the ramifications of the sale of Killington by ASC to SP Land. On a vote by ballot, just over 50% of those voting agreed to table the issue until a later date to allow more time to consider the measure. This short circuited further debate on the item at the Town Meeting. As it now stands, a request was made at Town Meeting for a committee to be formed to study the matter. When the study is completed, it will be up to the selectmen to call a special town meeting to consider the matter, or let the issue drop. It will be interesting to see how this article evolves over the coming months.

The only real period of acrimony occurred when State Representative Dr. Harry Chen addressed the town meeting. Several citizens pressed Dr. Chen to get more aggressive in representing the wishes of the town to the State Legislature in Montpelier. Dr. Chen did commit to reflect the towns wishes to the leadership in Montpelier, with the caveat that he represents 4 towns and he needs to make sure to represent all of the people in each town. While it was a very honest statement, it was not well received by some of Killington's residents. At the end, however, Dr. Chen was thanked for venturing out into a perceived hostile crowd, and given a warm round of applause upon finishing his talk.

On the skiing side of the resort, temperatures this morning at the inn at 9:00 am were a balmy -7F with strong gusty winds. By 1:30 PM when I left town meeting, temperatures had risen to a warm -1F in bright sunshine. It was probably a good day to be inside. Let it snow!

Snow continues to fall on Killington Peak 

Today was a pretty good day on the mountain. Light snow was falling most of the morning. Surfaces were machine groomed soft packed powder. Just a nice morning to be on the hill.

We did a variety of terrain this morning, and it was all good. Highline was politely firm, allowing nice sweeping edge to edge turns. East Falls had nice soft creamy powder. Little check turns on East Falls launched plumes of snow skyward. If the Canyon Chair was running, we might never have left this area, but it wasn't so we made the trek over to Bear Mountain.

At Bear, Upper Wildfire had soft, regular bumps. Bear Trap and Bear Claw sported groomed surfaces with a couple of inches of fluff dressing the top. Cruise Control has a nice small powder bump line developing down skiers left. Everywhere you went, as long as you could stay out of the Monday morning crowds, you found nice skiing on soft surfaces.

According to the local weather forecasters, conditions this week should stay pretty consistent. Through out the week, snow squalls are in the forecast. Just right to keep everything white. Let it snow!

Cover to the Town of Killington, Vermont
2006 Annual Report 

With all of the talk of the mountain of Killington, it is easy for people who do not reside in the area to forget that Killington is also a town in Vermont. Each spring, on the first Tuesday in March, town residents come together at the elementary school to decide how the town will be run for the next year through the "Town Meeting".

What many people call town meeting, is actually 2 meetings scheduled on the same day, this year being Tuesday March 6th. At 9:00 AM the Sherburne School District holds their annual meeting to discuss funding education for the children of Killington. Town Meeting, where all other items of town governance are discussed, begins just after the school meeting at 10:00 AM.

Town meeting this year has a couple of interesting twists. The first is an open Selectmen's seat. The second is a proposal to raise taxes to fund economic development in Killington.

On the Selectmen's seat, for the first time in a while, a Selectmen's seat will become available with the departure of current selectman Walt "Butch" Findeisen. Two candidates have currently announced for the position; Jim Blackman and Chris Karr. Others may declare their intentions at the town meeting, such being the free wheeling nature of the deliberations. Of the 2 declared candidates, Jim has lived in town for a number of years and has been active on the Recreation Commission. Chris has been active in the business community, and is currently president of the Killington Chamber of Commerce, a post that I held for 2 years starting in 2002. Both are nice men, with strong opinions.

In Jim Blackman's case, I have played golf with him on any number of occasions over the years. But other than social settings, I have not had the opportunity to interact much with Jim on community issues, as we have different interests. Jim and his wife have been focused on raising their children and the various community activities associated with being active parents. Mary and I on the other had, have been busy building a business in Killington, having gone through (in my case) the activities of raising children prior to moving to Killington. As a result, our circles don't overlap very much in the community, other than social settings.

My interactions with Chris Karr are a different story. While president of the Killington Chamber, I invited Chris to become a board member and take an active role in the organization, which he did. From my association with the Killington Chamber, I have seen Chris make a transformation over the last 5 years from a local business person primarily focused on their individual business, to a community leader attempting to help move the town of Killington forward in a positive direction. For this reason, I find myself supporting Chris Karr in his bid to become a member of the board of selectmen at Killington.

The other item which will garner much discussion at the town meeting is a proposal to add $0.03 to the tax rate for the next 2 years to fund economic development activities in Killington. Economic development in Killington, whose only "industry" is tourism, in this case means establishing and finding a mechanism to bring more events and activities to the town. The debate on this is sure to be lively, as the town is fairly well split between business who would like to see more activity, and 2 groups of local residents. One group of residents like things the way they are, with business declining. They would prefer a quieter town. The other group of residents, many of whom retired to the area, like the idea of more having activities in town, but want somebody else to pay for them.

My view on this issue is pretty simple.....Killington needs to get it's economic engine restarted. This is not the town I knew and loved when I was visitor. It is not even the same town that Mary and I moved to permanently and started a new business in 10 years ago. So much of what made Killington a vibrant place to visit, has been lost for a number of reasons over the last 10 years.

The sale of the resort to SP Land and the introduction of Powdr Corp should help the resort recover. While plans are not public, implicit in their investment to purchase the resort is a desire to capitalize on their investment. The only way that they can do that in the near and long term is to stimulate growth in visitors to the area; which means spending money on capital improvements to the resort and marketing.

However, the townspeople of Killington would be foolish to look at the changes in ownership in the resort as a new "Sugar Daddy" coming to town. While the transfer of the resort is a very positive piece of economic news for the region, pretending that everything is all better now could be a tragic mistake.

Instead, I believe the sale of the resort should be looked at as a galvanizing event... a new beginning of sorts. It will add energy and vitality to the resort that should be channelled to raise the whole community.

But the only way to effectively do that is to have the community as a whole participate in the revitalization. And that will take time, and effort, and money. And the money needs to come from somewhere. And the only fair community approach to raising money is through taxes. And the only community vehicle in place to raise taxes across the community is the towns property tax. So even though I do not like the idea of raising taxes, unless I hear something different at Town Meeting, I find myself supporting this initiative.

Town meeting day is always interesting. If you are a local resident, make sure you attend, raise any issues you may have, and vote. If you are a non resident, and are interested in civics, it is always a great display of democracy in action. I just hope it's not a powder day. Let it snow!

Chairs in the snow. 

I just about finished cleaning up from yesterdays storm this afternoon, when it started to snow again. Nothing major, just a quick hitting snow squall. But it was just enough to remind me that mother nature is still in control, not matter how far the snow blower throws the snow.

Inn guests are coming back from the mountain reporting excellent conditions on packed powder surfaces. Snow surfaces have softened up throughout the day as temperatures have approached the freezing mark. Many groomed trails on Killington have developed soft bumps in a precursor to spring skiing. Weather conditions the next couple of days are calling for intermittent snow showers. Just enough to keep refreshing the snow surfaces and keeping everything white. Let it snow!

Bill B. and Ray in near white-out
at top of Snowdon Triple 

Let's see... where to begin...

Should I mention 50 MPH winds... Blinding, white out conditions... a foot of fresh snow with your tracks getting covered each run... 2 lifts open, one being the Poma.. It's a tough call on where to start... but it was Glorious!

When I got to the mountain at 8:45, the snow was coming down hard. 2 ominous signs portended the morning to come. One was the K1 parking lot. Bay 2 was fairly organized, but I did not want to walk that far through the snow. Bay 3 looked like it was a picture taken from that highway from Kuwait to Bagdad in the first Gulf War. While there were no bombed out hulks, there was carnage everywhere. Cars and trucks parked at odd angles. So it was down to Bay 4 right by the road. A short walk to the K1 Base Lodge.

The other ominous item was that the lift attendants were taking the cars off the cable on the K1 Gondola and moving them to the garage. Oops.. No K1 today.... No Killington peak.

We got our skis on, I had my wide powder skis today, and trekked down to the Snowdon Quad. The first ride up was uneventful. Heavy snow but the wind was not too bad. We cruised over to Highline which had great coverage. Easily over a foot in places. A nice run, but definitely a work out as the first run on a heavy powder day.

When we got back down to the lift, we heard that only the Snowdon Quad was and the Poma on Bunny Buster was running. Wind was given as the reason, which was curious because the first lift ride was not that windy. Well the second lift up was another story. Very strong wind gusts at our back. Probably sustained winds in the 20's with gusts at who knows how much. The gusts were so strong that they would actually push the car forward causing us to rotate up on the cable. Very interesting.

A few more runs down off the Snowdon quad, and we were done by around 11:30. The last ride up on the quad was really interesting. The winds had really picked up. It was a very bumpy ride. But we had fun! Let it snow!

Pushing snow of the roof in
anticipation of a big storm 

Bluebird skies this morning were very deceptive. It seemed like perfect weather, although the weather forecasters are warning that the "Big One" is on the way.

All over town, people were finishing up last minute chores to get ready for an anticipated 2 feet of snow. I spent part of the afternoon pushing snow off of a section of flat roof over some of our guest rooms. I probably did not need to do it, but forecasters are calling for this storm to be heavier than the Valentines Day Storm, so it is better to be safe than sorry. Untouched snow on the roof was knee deep and still light and fluffy, giving testament to the quality of the Valentines Day Blizzard. It would be nice if this next storm does the same.

I took the snow stake picture late in the afternoon so we can get a true reading of the anticipated snow storm. I also put my powder skis back in the car. Given that I have not skied the last 2 days, I am all set to head to the mountain first thing tomorrow morning, without any guilt about having to work. Of course, I hope I need to use the snow blower for hours late in the afternoon. A nice snow dump would be good! Let it snow!

I have to work sometime! 

This morning at Killington our guests were presented with beautiful blue skies and mild temperatures. The perfect day for me to make breakfast in the kitchen.

Make breakfast in the kitchen?

I mentioned in yesterdays update that Mary had to travel to Boston on some family business. When she does that, many times yours truly mans the kitchen to make breakfast for our inn guests. Today was one of those days.

Breakfast this morning featured warm Blueberry Lemon Sweet Bread and Cranberry Apple Muffins. As a hot entree, I prepared a 2 cheese frittata. Each frittata was made with 2 eggs, a little chopped bermuda onion, chopped red pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, and grated Swiss and Vermont Cheddar cheese. 2/3rds of the guests also choose to add some sweet sausage.

I think of a frittata as a cross between an omelette, which you don't close, and a pizza. You first saute the vegetables in an omelette pan in lots of butter. When the vegetables are cooked, I like them crisp, you add the eggs which have been whipped with a little milk. Just before the eggs finish cooking, I cover the eggs and vegetables with the grated cheese and pop the pan into a very hot (500 degree) oven. Plus or minus 2 minutes later, the cheese has melted and is hot and bubbling. You transfer the frittata, without folding it over, on to a plate, garnish, serve and enjoy. A filling breakfast before heading out on the slopes for a day of skiing or riding. Let it snow!