CAVENDISH, Vt. – Cavendish town manager Rick Chambers addressed the selectboard at the Monday night, Oct. 16 meeting, before introducing the research scientist behind a new organization in town, Cavendish Labs (CL). CL held an open house last weekend, which Chambers said he’d attended. After some confusion arose about the group and its work, Chambers asked members of the nonprofit to attend the Monday meeting, and present to the board what CL is all about. Four members of CL were at the meeting, and Joe spoke first, introducing himself, Derek, and Andrew as directors. He stated that the organization was “dedicated to solving a few problems that we feel are important.”
Joe went on to say that the open house was a way to get to know the town of Cavendish better, and he mentioned that many of the residents, some present at the selectboard meeting, had received “little gifts in the mail” from CL, with invitations to attend the event.
Chambers remarked that it was the nature of the gifts, and the explanation Joe had given him at the open house, that spurred his interest in having the group address the board meeting.
Joe responded, “It costs 66 cents to send a letter in the mail, however, with Amazon Prime, it only costs 48 cents to ship a can of tomato sauce or a bag of pasta to an address. So, we found it would be cheaper to mass mail tomato sauce and bags of pasta to the entire town of Cavendish.” The comment was met with laughter from residents.
CL director Derek spoke on the group’s mission. “Perhaps first I should say that currently, everything that we do is computational, so we’re not actually mixing together chemicals. Our work is concentrated in two areas, the safety of advanced artificial intelligence systems, and a study of a type of ultraviolet light that we believe can kill off viruses and bacteria while being harmless to humans.” Derek explained that the work is all done with computer models, and no real viruses or bacteria are involved.
Andrew added, “Finally, we really love Cavendish and the town. It’s beautiful, a lot of the people we’ve met are great, so we’d like to say thank you for the warm welcome so far.”
Joe said if there were questions, or if anyone wanted to work with CL, they were welcome to email hello@cavendishlabs.org. “We’d love to do more community outreach.”
The group said they are being funded mostly by private grant funds.
A preliminary discussion about flood prevention measures was introduced by Robin Timko from Cavendish Community Conservation Associate (CCCA), who told the board that they had asked board member Stephen Plunkard, who was not present, to draft a plan on how to proactively manage the watershed, to avoid the same types of flood damages from occurring over and over.
“The model that has been followed from the federal government down,” read Timko, quoting Plunkard, “has been to send aid after disasters rather than looking for a new way forward, often rebuilding the same way things were, in the same spots.”
Timko reported that, although Plunkard was currently recovering from an accident, he was fully prepared to lead the discussion at an upcoming meeting, planned for Nov. 20.
Margo Caulfield asked if Kelly Stetner from Black River Action Team (BRAT) was involved, and mentioned that Stetner had recently made an “amazing presentation” that was available on Okemo Valley TV on the topic of flood prevention. They discussed including Stetner in the conversation going forward. Timko said she would confirm the Nov. 20 meeting date with the board once Plunkard was recovered, with enough time to publish a warning.
The board approved a request presented by Chambers from the Grafton Cheese Company. The company was requesting a letter of support to submit along with a grant application for a new retail location at 2568 Route 103 in Proctorsville, the former location of Black River Produce. The town planning commission had already provided a letter of support, reported Chambers, but he said he hadn’t seen a flood permit from Grafton Cheese yet, and would remind them the building sits in a flood zone.
Chambers gave a progress update on the diesel spill clean-up at the old garage location. He said there would be more testing before the extent of the spill is known, then a plan for future use of the site would be developed. Chambers said insurance may cover clean-up costs, and if not, there may be other funds available.
Chambers related the good news that all town roads were now open and passable, even though there is more work to be done to finalize repairs in some spots. He reported that the town is looking to get as many pictures of flood damage as possible, and said the best way to send them in would be to text them to 802-738-6445. The cell number is unmanned, explained Chambers, but will receive texts. He said, as a last resort, he would also accept photos via email.
Further updates on the Black River gravel removal, and the start of the Greven Field clean-up, were also positive. Chambers reported that they expect to extract about 30,000 cubic yards of usable gravel from the Black River clean-up effort, which is being piled in the town pit. The gravel will need to be crushed, but then will be used “for years to come,” according to Chambers, providing a potential cost savings of $250,000 over the next several years.
Chambers also announced that Crown Point Excavation had begun, just in the last few days, removing large debris and rough grading the field at Greven Field. The rebuilding of the baseball field will happen later.
The final order of business was a welcome to Gladys Seville, a new, part-time employee in the town office.