What do Orange and Bethany have that Woodbridge doesn’t? A plan to handle a huge snow storm that was predicted days ahead of time, it appears.

How can that be? Apparently, neighboring towns had pre-arranged with private contractors to help out, but Ed Sheehy had no such plan in place.  The slow, poor snow removal cost many Woodbridge residents an additional day of work, and equally bad, Woodbridge dragged Orange and Bethany middle and high school student into another lost school day because many buses could not get through side street to pick up the Woodbridge kids.  We received daily automated calls from the first selectman, but not enough real action.  Let’s hope this does not repeat itself when the next big one hits – or maybe we just subcontract our town management to Orange or Bethany when things get tough.

We should also be thankful that there were no major medical emergencies as so many families were unable to leave their homes.  As someone that had lived in northern Vermont for 38 years, this sort of handling of snow removal was totally unacceptable.  For my Vermont town of 500 people, snow was a way of life.  When you have days to prepare for a storm like this one, to think that major roads in Woodbridge had no snow removal at all for up to 12-24 hours.  Let's work together to improve on the way we handle snow removal in the future so my children aren't going to school until July!

Jody Smith

Woodbridge