Albany

ALBANY — The Albany General Store will be getting a second chance six years after a devastating fire severely damaged the community landmark.

Thanks in part to support from the Vermont Electric Co-op’s Community Fund, the Albany Community Trust has plans to have the store back on its feet before the end of the year.

The general store offered everything from groceries, a deli, souvenirs, and according to Arthur Wolff, a member of the community trust, it was a place to bring the community together.

He says it was and will continue to be once renovations are finished.

“It’s a place for conversation, connections and where friendships are formed and strengthened,” said Wolff.

He and the community hope that the revival of the store will bring some economic growth to the town of 940 people as well.

After the 2013 fire, the owners had struggled to cover the damages and eventually tried to sell, to no avail.

Finally, the community took the store into their own hands.

Wolff, who has 25 years of non-profit fundraising experience, said he has been astounded by the amount of local support.

The Albany Store project has received an outpouring of support from both within Albany as well as from surrounding communities.

Organizers have raised $410,000 in grants and donations, including VEC’s Community Fund donation of $1,000.

The renovation, which is expected to be completed by the end of this construction season, will feature some exciting new additions to make the space even more inviting than before, Wolff said.

Wolff said that the main part of the store will remain the same but that there will be an expanded community room made possible, in part, because the organization was able to buy an adjoining parcel of land.

“Albany is a unique, very rural, Vermont town and I don’t know that people in Burlington could understand it, to have only one little retail store that is the heart of the community,” said Wolff. “What we’re doing is trying to preserve what Albany has always been.”

ALBANY — The Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) recently announced Elinor Osborn of Albany as the recipient of the 2018 Julie Nicholson Citizen Science Award.

Established in 2009, the annual Julie Nicholson Citizen Science Award honors volunteer Julie Nicholson’s extraordinary passion and commitment to birds and wildlife conservation through her many years of tireless work as a citizen scientist.

Elinor Osborn was chosen as the 2018 awardee as she exemplifies this same spirit and dedication to conservation and citizen science.

So, what is a citizen scientist? A citizen scientist is an individual who voluntarily contributes their time, effort, and resources to collect or analyze data in collaboration with professional scientists.

A science background is not necessary to participate—just enthusiasm and a willingness to learn.

Elinor’s commitment to citizen science and wildlife conservation spans decades—and includes contributions to the Vermont Loon Conservation Project, the Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont, the Vermont Butterfly Survey, and the Vermont Bumble Bee Atlas.

An accomplished professional photographer, Elinor has donated many stunning photographs for use in VCE’s and other conservation nonprofit’s outreach materials.

Before coming to Vermont, Elinor and her husband George lived in upstate New York—she working as a music teacher and George as a trombonist in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

After retiring, she had the good fortune to follow the Trumpeter Swan Migration Project, photographing and writing a children’s book about it.

Elinor and George started coming to Vermont to ski at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center about 1980, and moved to the area when they retired.

Soon after, Elinor began photographing loons and participating in VCE projects.

“Elinor has covered Great Hosmer Pond as an adopt-a-lake volunteer since the late 1990s,” says Eric Hanson, VCE’s loon biologist and leader of VCE’s Vermont Loon Conservation Project. “She and George spent many nights helping me with loon banding efforts and nighttime rescues. They kayaked lakes all over the Northeast Kingdom to monitor loons for VCE.”

Before George passed away in 2016, he joined Elinor on some of her adventures.

She recalls one night vividly—canoeing in the dark amid lurking stumps, watching Eric spotlight and eventually capture a loon.

Back on shore, she watched as Eric banded the loon and collected blood and feather samples.

“On the same night on another lake, before another capture, we saw clouds of bats darting and shining silver in the spotlight, just above the water,” Osborn recalls. “That loon was entangled in fishing line. While I held the loon’s beak just enough to keep it from opening, Eric surgically removed the line, then returned the loon to the water. Then we tumbled into our motel beds at 4:00 a.m. after a wonderful night with loons.”

These adventures and others led Elinor to write and photograph an article on loon conservation in Vermont for Vermont Life Magazine in 2003.

These days, Elinor walks a half mile down the road to check on the nesting loon pair at the south end of Great Hosmer Pond several times a week each summer.

Or when she has a chance to kayak, she checks on the whole of Great Hosmer Pond as well as Little Hosmer Pond for loon activity.

You can learn more about the Julie Nicholson Citizen Science Award and citizen science opportunities at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies website: https://vtecostudies.org.

NEWPORT — An Albany man will serve time in prison after pleading guilty to DUI charges.

The Orleans County State’s Attorney’s Office announced today that Rocky A. Cady, 48, of Albany, was sentenced on charges of DUI #4, operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent, and operating a vehicle with license suspended.

Judge Robert Bent sentenced Cady to serve 3 to 8 years behind bars.

The State had asked for a more significant jail sentence.

Cady has an extensive history of driving offenses which includes 4 DUIs, 4 operating a vehicle without owner’s consent, 5 driving while license suspended, 2 leaving the scene of an accident, 1 attempting to elude, and 1 Gross Negligent Operation.

NEWPORT — A logger from Orleans has been ordered to pay $60,000 in civil penalties for violating Vermont’s water quality and heavy cut timber laws.

A court-approved settlement requires Reginald Riendeau to comply with a harvest plan for any new logging activity and to give notice to the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation before any new logging activity for the next three years.

Mr. Riendeau admitted that he failed to follow the Acceptable Management Practices for Logging resulting in discharges to state waters in Wheelock and Albany, conducted logging activities within a protected wetland and its buffer zone, and heavy cut more than 40 acres without Department approval

“There is no excuse for not protecting water quality on logging jobs,” said Attorney General Bill Sorrell. “Our forests are a vital part of our environment and economy. Following good management practices is critical to protecting our forests and keeping state waters clean,” he added.

Under a previous order by Washington Superior Court in this case, Mr. Riendeau performed the necessary remediation at the Albany site.

“We are encouraged by the settlement and feel that it sends a message to those in the forest industry who disregard state statutes,” Steven Sinclair, Director of Forests at the Department, stated. “Requiring a harvest plan will ensure that future logging by Reginald Riendeau will follow state laws.”