Rockingham adopts grass-cutting ordinance

Property owners who fail to keep their lawns cut could be hit with a fine next summer, after the village trustees Tuesday adopted a grass cutting ordinance for Bellows Falls.

[Betty]

I can not believe the Police Dept. is going to patrol lawns and how tall your grass is. Time would be better spent getting out and walking around the square.It is VERY intimidating trying to shop and go to the bank downtown with the teenagers in crowds making comments when you pass by.

[flat lander]

Well there out there looking for grass to cut down as in dope so looking at your yard and measuring the height of the nap verses your neighbor trim level you could land in court defending your problems with your lawn mower repair man can't get the parts and my new electric model hasn't arrived due to economy. the police on the other hand will have 10 9x10 glossy picture with a ruler and a baggy with some length samples and vitamin depleted chemicals and abuse of letting your dog go on it. GREAT SCOTT that's what the judge will recommend to you and 30 days to straihten up your lawn and you

[Tamarac]

Haven't we learned anything since the publication of, "Silent Spring"? Manicured green lawns are an environmental disaster! By removing flowers such as clover, dandylions, milkweed, golden rod....we starve the insects we all depend upon to pollinate our apples and locally grown produce. By cutting lawns we make natural food scarce for native wildlife & migrating birds. I think that their are few things more ugly than a green lawn! Poisons and other chemicles dumped into our soils, lakes, streams and rivers to create worthless non native lawns.

[VTER]

GIMME A BREAK!!
THE POLICE NEED TO DO THEIR REAL JOBS!
MEASURING LAWNS ISNT IT!!

[Tamarac]

Vermont needs to redefine what is considered beautiful. I suggest that someone take a close look at desert landscapes out West. Lawns waste wanter and we get no environmental bennifit. If I lived in Rockingham, I would plow up my lawn and plant native wildflowers and grasses. I would allow trees and shrubs to nataralize my property and I would have my property designated as a backyard habitat by the Audubon Society. I currently have over one acre or my property dedicated to wildlife habitat.

[Joe]

i can see the headlines coming

Police ticket elderly couple who do to medical problems weren't able to cut their lawn for a few weeks. Their son came up every other week to visit and do their lawn, but his wife just had a baby and they figured the lawn could wait another week.

The control freaks will pass another law to fix the last law.

[Tamarac]

Tamarac wrote:

Haven't we learned anything since the publication of, "Silent Spring"? Manicured green lawns are an environmental disaster! By removing flowers such as clover, dandylions, milkweed, golden rod....we starve the insects we all depend upon to pollinate our apples and locally grown produce. By cutting lawns we make natural food scarce for native wildlife & migrating birds. I think that their are few things more ugly than a green lawn! Poisons and other chemicles dumped into our soils, lakes, streams and rivers to create worthless non native lawns.

Do you understand why it is so expensive and difficult to grow lawns? Green carpet lawns are not native and not naturaly thrive in this environment. That is why the need to bee fertalized 4 times a year and over seeded twice a year and then herbisides and pestisides and lyme......Not to mention all the noise and carbon emmissions from lawn mowers.

[smoke grass dont cut it]

This ordinance is a result of too many governing boards meeting too often. It is a knee-jerk bad law that will be impossible to enforce fairly.

[America no more]

It should be clear to all that the trustees are no longer needed. If the PD has no other pressing business, then we should finally reduce the size of the "force". Maybe the displaced gendarmes could open a lawn service.

[bfterriergal]

I agree with the above comments. I may be wrong, but I think at the first meeting this subject came up because the trustees' recording secretary had a neighbor whose grass was too long. The response by the trustees to pass this ordinance leaves the people too vulnerable to whimsical decisions. This response is like planting surveillance cameras everywhere to combat crime. Imagine if someone proposed that in BF?

Nothing against these trustees personally, they are far superior than last year's bunch, but this village board coupled with the selectboard (which already has jurisdiction over the village) is too much governance.

[Vermont citizen]

Note to the Reformer. The headline is false. The Town of Rockingham did not adopt this ridiculous ordinance. Its dysfunctional child Bellows Falls Village did. Big surprise there. This ordinance absolutely will be abused regardless of what the Trustees intentions were. The Board of Trustees membership changes every year.

[Kevin]

Good Idea...The Police can use that useless pickup truck they have to haul around the mower and trimmer. What a joke Bellows Falls Has become.

[flat lander]

fences make good neighbors they say but apparently they left out of the saying the 21 century addition to the saying 8 FOOT STOCKADE FENCES LIKE THEY USED TO KEEP OUT THE INDIANS AND THE IRISH DRUNKS.

[shame]

This is the best the trustees do?
Keep this in mind if any of the morons run for election again.

And the police?
They should be in town telling these kids to go home - or even better - working with the trustees to use one of the many empty buildings around here to give them a place to go.

This town deserves better than this. But if no one speaks up at meeting, then they'll just keeping making stupid decisions like this.

[con sahl o date]

May 2010 will be here before you know it and thats when the crackpots will be running for village trustee and looking to pass ordinances at their fancy. While there is still a sane board, please throw up the bf charter! I haven't heard anything about the progress of consolidating, but I see shining examples of why we should every month.

[con sahl o date]

and by the way, consolidation is a NO BRAINER for Village tax payers. The only villagers that would be in favor of the current set up are the ones who want to maintain their fiefdom and who's lifestyles are unaffected by the tax rate. The will of Bellows Falls Villagers would be well represented on their Town's selectboard as they comprise a majority of the town's population. The only question is: why would Rockingham tax payers want any part of the BF budgets? The answer: Bellows Falls is Rockingham's economic hub, Rockingham residents benefit from its services when they do their banking, post office business,(shopping?) and they should directly share in the costs and decison making of its
departments. Bellows Falls has got to sell itself to Rockingham.

Then when an ordinace such as this is proposed, there will be data, discussion with a greater pool of thinkers and decisions ultimately made by representatives who have been vetted and approved by over a thousand voters.

Anything could happen with the village board. And this is the best board we've had in a while. We're not too far removed from last year's debacle and we're always a little too close to it happening again.

[Vermont citizen]

con sahl o date wrote:

and by the way, consolidation is a NO BRAINER for Village tax payers. The only villagers that would be in favor of the current set up are the ones who want to maintain their fiefdom and who's lifestyles are unaffected by the tax rate. The will of Bellows Falls Villagers would be well represented on their Town's selectboard as they comprise a majority of the town's population. The only question is: why would Rockingham tax payers want any part of the BF budgets? The answer: Bellows Falls is Rockingham's economic hub, Rockingham residents benefit from its services when they do their banking, post office business,(shopping?) and they should directly share in the costs and decison making of its
departments. Bellows Falls has got to sell itself to Rockingham.
Then when an ordinace such as this is proposed, there will be data, discussion with a greater pool of thinkers and decisions ultimately made by representatives who have been vetted and approved by over a thousand voters.
Anything could happen with the village board. And this is the best board we've had in a while. We're not too far removed from last year's debacle and we're always a little too close to it happening again.

Amen,
But you are right, it will be a tough sell. The seemingly current favorite plan of the merger committee is to set up a special tax district in the village so the folks here will still be the only ones ponying up for the PD and FD.

I believe Bob is pushing that one. So non-villagers will get the control, but not the bill. Thats not consolidation at all.

My question is, if you are going to district the town, then are they willing to set aside seats on the Selectboard specifically and only for village resident candidates? Gotta have guarenteed representation if we villagers are going to have special taxation.

[con sahl o date]

even if we had a district within the Town, there would need to be a board to decide how that district's money would be spent, so we're back to square 1. I'm curous if the district would be defined at the current village borders. Really, is webb terrace any less a part of the bellows falls community than the last house on griswold drive? And yet, one street is comprised of "villagers" and the other is not. It all is Rockingham, however.
The idea of a district seemingly stems from rural Rockingham saying: "you want these services, you can have them, you can pay for them. We don't want them." Non-village Rockingham voters need to be convinced that they will have a say in the size of the services, and if they don't want BF cops on pleasant valley road, cambridgeport road, etc., then that directive can be given. The BF cops purpose is to patrol and be reponsive to the condensed, commerce section of Rockingham, i.e. Bellows Falls. We want them on foot downtown and on Atkinson Street so that when the people go to the bank there is one cop nearby per 20 punks. The Bellows Falls police department wasn't constituted to hand out speeding tickets on rural roads.
So Rockingham: chip in and take control of your town center's destiny. Bellows Falls: tear down this artificial wall that prevents the whole town from maximizing its potential.

[con sahl o date]

OK, sorry, I can't let this go. Now more than ever is the time for consolidation. Unlike in years past, there are no separate thriving village centers within the same town. Saxtons River, once self sustaining, has the economy of Cambridgeport. It is a bedroom community. Bellows Falls has the gas stations, the hospital, hardware store, banks etc... Bellows Falls is Saxtons River's hub. Saxtons River and other parts of Rural Rockingham should be contributing tax dollars to the services it's hub needs. The police and fire department are services for you, Rockingham. You are Bellows Falls, Rockingham. The Village of Bellows Falls has got to get behind this and stomp on the self-destructive forces within.

[Vermont citizen]

I believe the apathy of BF voters is largely to blame for consolidation efforts failing in the past. They have the majority, they simply didn't show up to vote.

I believe the same can be said for the passing of this foolish ordinance. Of the two or three meetings in which the grass cutting ordinance was discussed (or at least mentioned) prior to it passing, I count a total of two people showing up to any meeting to speak against it.