Weekly Roundup - Norwich News, for week ending May 18, 2013

Police Chief Comments On Door-to-door Solicitors

Since Tuesday, the Norwich, VT listserv was [and still is] abuzz about two young men from Nebraska who are selling products door to door. Most of the posts express concerns about safety, but some suggest patience.  The two men are affiliated with Southwestern Advantage.  The company hires college students as independent contractors to sell educational materials door-to-door. A few students make a lot of money. Most just fail. See Door-to-door for the summer?, in USA Today April 19 2012. Here are Police Chief Robinson's comments issued on Sunday:
        The town of Norwich has a vendor ordinance, if someone comes into the station requesting a permit we obtain the solicitors information, names and addresses, company, any vehicles etc.. and we set parameters' for when they can peddle their wares including but not limited to i.e. only 9 AM to 7 PM /  No Sundays / No Saturdays etc... They are also told that if we get any complaints (rude behavior, aggressive tactics, peddling outside the parameters set then the vendor permit will be revoked.
       If they come in with proper credentials and we have no information or previous complaints from other communities we issue them the permit.  If the town adopts a NO SOLICITATION ordinance then we can refuse the permit.  If you have complaints about the door to door sales you should immediately call the police so we can document the complaints and show enough evidence to revoke the permit.  We also ask, as previously posted by someone on this list serve to keep an eye out for your neighbors and report any suspicious behavior.
       My officers are now gathering all the complaints made to the police as well as on the list serve which will be filed if the company returns next year.
       I hope this explains and addresses some of the complaints.  I will be back from vacation on Wednesday the 22nd, if you have any questions or concerns please give me a call.

Norwich Architect's Drawings On Display At AVA

From the Architect’s Drafting Table
Stuart White’s Plans Were Made by Hand
By Nicola Smith, Valley News Staff Writer
May 17, 2013
Thank the thieves who broke into Stuart White’s car during a trip he made to Italy in 1962, and stole his passport, some money and his camera: without them the drawings he made of the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome, now on view in an exhibition of his drawings and architectural plans at the AVA Gallery in Lebanon, might not exist.
Left untouched were a money belt that his mother had urged him to bring with him, containing $200, and his drawing pencils and pad. Without a camera, White had to rely on his skill as a draftsman to show the colossal monuments of Mycenae and Delphi, and the Parthenon in Athens. “I scarcely dared draw it,” White said of the Parthenon. “My heart was beating too fast.”
Sitting in a chair in the Johnson Sisters Library on the second floor at AVA, where the show of his work runs through June 7, White, modest in manner, gazes over at his drawings. “They’re sketchy, not perfect,” he said. But they have one signal virtue: when he looks at them, “I can feel where I was.”
Read the rest of the story.

ECFiber raises another $430,000

vermontbiz.com
May 17, 2013
The next phase of ECFiber’s broadband deployment received a sizable boost when local investors connected to its 23 town service territory purchased $430,000 of its 2013 Series tax-exempt promissory notes. This new investment will finance extension of the community-based nonprofit’s existing fiber-optic network by as much as 20 miles and will serve an estimated 100 or more households and businesses which currently do not have high-speed broadband access.
ECFiber Treasurer John Roy of Vershire announced results at the groups Governing Board meeting on May 14 noting that the total raised now exceeds $3.5 million from over 300 individual investors. ECFiber currently has about 330 subscribers along its existing 50 miles of network in Barnard, Royalton, Tunbridge, and Vershire. Within the next few months, it expects to connect customers in Chelsea, Thetford, Strafford, Norwich, and Sharon. The next routes to be built are now under design.
ECFiber, based in Royalton, is a consortium of 23 municipalities in east-central Vermont building a community-owned fiber-optic network to deliver reliable high-speed broadband Internet connectivity to every home, business, and civic institution throughout its territory. The number of subscribers is expected to double as the funds raised in 2012 are spent during this construction season.

LINKS:
http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/career/door-to-door-for-the-summer

http://www.vnews.com/search/6239565-95/from-the-architects-drafting-table

http://www.vermontbiz.com/node/27229

The Norwich Observer. Aggregating news and information about Norwich, Vermont with occasional commentary ... .