May 2025 – Ralston, Vermont's "Green Island" City

Floating Pathway Network

More like Vermont — the environment is much more of a wetland than a lake

Ralston has recently completed the construction of a floating pathway network along the lakeside shores (see image below). Since the project’s completion, these floating pathways have become something of a tourist attraction, as walking across a lake is an incredibly unique feeling! Not only has the pathway attracted tourists, but locals have begun using it as well for all kinds of purposes. From providing a new route for an early bird’s jog, to providing a relaxing stroll for all families, these floating pathways have opened up a part of the city never before explored. Overall, these floating pathways were a simple and small addition to Ralston, and yet, now that they’re here, they have become closely tied to the identity of Ralston, the “Green Island City”.

Kyodai Cafe

The tokusatsu themed cafe known as Kyodai (after the subgenre) is a hub of Ralston’s subcultures. It has the vibe of a small town diner and serves standard cafe food. It has neatly packaged photogenic sandwiches and stocks a small selection of international candies and snacks. Its most recognizable feature is the giant wooden statue of the tokusatsu hero Ultraman which is parked in the lot to the cafe’s left. The statue serves as a tourist attraction in its own right with people coming up to visit during or after their visits to Burlington to take photos with the thing. Kyodai always has some old Godzilla movie or episode of Kamen Rider playing on the retro TVs scattered around the place. The establishment is a cafe sure, but as opposed to the town’s other cafes which cater to a more general cafe crowd. This place caters to hobbyists and nerds. Board Game tables, retro consoles, and a few arcade games can be found towards the back of the establishment

Fish and Wildlife Sector

As a landmass right in lake Champlain, Ralston is no stranger to the act of fishing. However, as such an isolated landmass, regulation becomes difficult; while we can assume the population of Ralston would be responsible while fishing, a lack of guarantees means that Ralston could land in hot water if the lake were to suffer from overfishing.

Enter: A dedicated home for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. Instead of having a Ralston dedicated Fish and Wildlife department separate from the state government, direct cooperation results in not only maintaining a healthy ecosystem but also allows for easy access to things like hunting licenses without requiring long drives to and from the other nearest public facilities. The building will be established in the populated area of ward 3, placing it close to both populated areas and the large forest on the east side of the island.

Annual Canoe Race

Ralston would benefit greatly from incorporating an Annual Canoe Race around the island, both as a tourist attraction and as a recreational way to bring the community together once a year. Ralston’s main attraction is how it is a small island surrounded by water, which makes a recreational race around the island very plausible and unique, because most other islands are far too large to accommodate a race of that scale. Not only this, but Ralston could also hold events prior to the race where the community can come together to build and decorate their own canoes, which highlights the creativity of the town and the pride they have in their community. This could be for all age groups, or it could be separated into junior and senior events to make the competition more fair.

To make watching the race entertaining, there could be stations set up around the coast of the island for residents to set up camps and watch as the racers go by, whilst also having cameramen on boats following and recording the racers to go on live television for those that are unable to attend the race in person. Prizes for the race could include something physical like a trophy, or memorial like being able to name an attraction or tourist spot in Ralston.

Ralston Ecological Preservation Society

Ralston community member Hector Grant hanging one of the bat boxes around Ralston

The Ralston Ecological Preservation Society is a grouping of local community members that has formed to spread across all wards. They currently meet weekly with meetings switching between member’s houses, Sally Huang makes the best ambrosia salad (is any ambrosia salad good?). The purpose of the society is to preserve and record the diverse fauna and flora ecosystem that is Ralston. Projects by the society include, fauna and flora catalogs where they give information about different native species, Big Brown Bat habitat protections in the wake of white nose syndrome population decimations, and a hunt for the oldest tree. Sally thinks its the Oak on Poplar in Ward 3, but Hector Grant thinks its the Maple on Grove St in Ward 1. “That Maple easily could have been here from before colonists,” the young man was quoted saying.

The society has also done work with the public gardens and home garden growers in helping identify which local plants would thrive best in Ralston’s unique climate. 25 batboxes have been hung in various places around Ralston near fresh water sources in hopes of bringing back this important part of the ecosystem after its near destruction 10 years ago. All in the hopes of creating and preserving a beautiful space for all living things to live.

Solar Grid and Pollinator Garden

Ralston Vermont has successfully implemented our hybrid advanced solar grid and pollinator garden! Because of our town’s relatively small population as well as its remote location, solar energy is the best way to make sure that the town has power even when we can’t get our power from the mainland. Now that we have the solar panels, we have been able to maintain power after our main grid connected to the mainland was damaged in a major storm. We have also revived the bee population on the island with the pollinator gardens that grow around the panels. After the bees came back, Ralston has become Vermont’s number one honey producer and has attracted worldwide attention dubbing it Ralston Gold! This project has been so fruitful that the solar farm and the pollinator garden have become a huge tourist attraction for visitors to Ralston.

Ralston Library Committee

Introducing the Ralston Library committee! We’re ready to join and dedicated to serving our community of Ralston. The committee oversees and manages all of the libraries around Ralston. By working with our community, a few things we’ve done to improve is providing free library licenses to the school children as well as open up multiple jobs for book keepers and even after school teachers for separate programs. Speaking of separate programs, we’re planning on working with the local grade school to host a few after school programs. One of the programs we plan to focus more resources into would focus on helping children who may struggle with certain academic columns like focusing, literacy, writing, social skills, etc. This would take place primarily during the school year, and during the summer we would work with teachers from each school to re-write the curriculum if needed. During the summer, we plan to focus on hiring high school or college students to not only help around the library, but learn the inner mechanisms so they’d be confident in building their soft skills outside of the library.

Walton Goggins

“The Ralston Garden” Publishing

The local privately owned news agency by the name of “The Ralston Garden”, manages publishing all news related media from newspaper, cable to articles on their website. They range from local stories, concerns as well as General Vermont Concerns and a segment for national and world news. It would be a staple of the community and where most locals get their information for all sorts of things from government to the farmers almanac, as well as new local businesses. The Ralston Garden should also have segments about the culture of the city and how it has been changing and adapting to new communities becoming a part of it as well as local legends. The Ralston Garden will reflect how those a part of the community trust their officials and each other to keep them in mind. This is the most popular in Ralston and has been gaining popularity outside of Ralston due to publishing multiple sides to one issue to give fuller coverage.

Department of Recycling and Waste Management Update

The Ralston Department of Recycling and Waste Management is now implemented in to the town’s infrastructure. There are 3 drop off points throughout Ralston.

They are strategically placed to be spread out throughout the main wards, and close to high-traffic areas like the highschool. The dropoff points serve as a place where people can dropoff their recycling and have an attendant help them sort it into the proper categories. This recycling is then transported off the island to the nearest mainland recycling center.